


(How Do We Fall Apart?) Faster Than a Hairpin Trigger

by crookedsilence



Series: From Pittsburgh to Philly With Love [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alpha Travis Konecny, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Sex, Bonding, Consent, Dirty Talk, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Multiple Orgasms, Omega Sidney Crosby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 19:11:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23933404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedsilence/pseuds/crookedsilence
Summary: Since presenting at fifteen, Sid has had no interest in finding a mate or bonding. Unfortunately, mind over matter only takes you so far in life, and in the summer of 2016, he finds himself receiving some less-than-encouraging news about his biological needs.----In other words, Sid is stubborn; Travis is actually a very nice boy; and somehow, things work out.
Relationships: Sidney Crosby/Travis Konecny
Series: From Pittsburgh to Philly With Love [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1744477
Comments: 71
Kudos: 367





	(How Do We Fall Apart?) Faster Than a Hairpin Trigger

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, and I make no profit for it. Title is from Bishop Briggs' "River".
> 
> Although they probably do not know it, I owe a huge thank you to iaintafraidofnoghostbear who wrote the original Sid/Travis ABO story that inspired this.

“Sid,” Dr. Vyas begins, solemn-faced, “based off what you told me and your lab results. It looks like you’re experiencing mild heat flashes.”

“Heat flashes?” Sid repeats, and Dr. Vyas nods, shuffling the papers in his too-thick folder and sliding a few out onto the desk between them.

“Yes, they’re quite common for people in your situation.”

Sid’s brow furrows. “But I thought heat flashes only happened to omegas and beta women who were past their reproductive years. I’m nowhere close to that.”

Humming, Dr. Vyas taps one of the papers covered in numbers and charts, finger hovering over the words ‘appears to have weakening familial alpha bond that is inducing sporadic heat symptoms’. Sid frowns at the words.

“You’re thinking of hot flashes, Sid,” Dr. Vyas corrects gently, “and those _are_ seen in older beta women and omegas that have passed childbearing years. What you are experiencing are heat flashes. As you can see here,” he says, tapping at the lab report, “despite being on birth control, your hormone levels are elevated across the board: estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. That’s why you’ve been having the temperature fluctuations, the heightened sense of smell, and the anxiousness. Your body is looking for a bond.”

“But I have a bond. My dad’s an alpha.”

Dr. Vyas sighs, longsuffering, and gives Sid a knowing look. “You have a familial bond, Sid. That was never going to last.”

“I know, but I thought it would last longer than this. I was told it would last longer.”

He gets an unimpressed look for his trouble.

“You were told that there was a small possibility it would last longer than this, but that was always the optimistic exception, not the rule. Frankly, I am amazed that you were able to go this long without any problems or complications.”

Sid purses his lips in a thin, unhappy line. “So what does this mean? Can I keep playing?”

Huffing out a breathy laugh, Dr. Vyas shakes his head. “Your body’s trying to push you to find a bond, and all you’re worried about is hockey.”

Sid blinks at him, and Dr. Vyas sighs.

“Right, of course. Hockey is very important for you, and I do not mean to diminish that, but I need you to understand how important and possibly dangerous this is.” He gathers the papers and folds his hands on top of them, leaning forward to look intently at Sid. “You’re approaching thirty. Most omegas your age are mated and have already had a few kids. If not, they’re in a serious relationship or looking for one. Based off of these results,” he says with a wave of his hand, “it doesn’t look like any of those are true for you.”

A familiar defensiveness bubbles up in Sid, the sharp bite of anger and the uncontrollable wash of shame he feels each time some distant cousin or great aunt asks when he’s going to find a nice alpha and settle down.

“Having kids isn’t my top priority right now,” he says honestly. “I’ve already lost so much time to injuries; I couldn’t imagine giving up more so I can have some alpha’s baby.”

Dr. Vyas nods in understanding, and he settles back in his chair. “I know, and I am not suggesting that you go get yourself mated and knocked up. However, it is time to start looking for a mate.”

The words make Sid’s stomach churn, and he curls in on himself minutely, shoulders hunching forward and arms crossing.

“You don’t need to jump into anything serious,” Dr. Vyas quickly tells him, “but you need to start spending time with unmated alphas. Even going on just a few dates could help even out your hormones.”

“There’s nothing you can give me for that?” Sid asks hopefully because there has to be something, some pill or a shot he could take, like birth control but stronger.

Dr. Vyas shakes his head reluctantly. “I can give you heat suppressants to keep you from going into a full heat, but I’m afraid even the wonders of modern medical science have not been able to understand or overcome this biological quirk.”

Quirk makes it sound so benign, so unassuming and insignificant. It feels like a misnomer. A quirk is taking the long route to the locker room to avoid the visitors’ side or wearing the same jockstrap every season. A quirk is eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before every game or sitting by the same person on the plane. A quirk is not elevated hormones and pre-heat symptoms reminding him of his body’s need for an alpha to mount him and fuck him and keep him off the ice and pregnant.

“I can keep playing though, right? If I’m taking the suppressants, this shouldn’t keep me off the ice.”

Dr. Vyas blows out a slow breath. “No, this won’t keep you off the ice.” Sid grins in relief. “For now,” he continues, and the grin falls. “Suppressants are not a solution; they are a band-aid that will eventually be useless, if you don’t make some changes.”

“Okay.”

“I am serious, Sid. This is not something to take lightly. Suppressants will keep you from experiencing a full heat, but they won’t keep you from having many of the symptoms. And if you don’t start looking for a mate soon, they will not be enough to stave off a full heat, and I don’t think I need to tell you how difficult that would be for an unmated omega.”

Frowning, Sid nods. “I understand. I’ll…I’ll start looking for some dates.” Dr. Vyas’ lips thin at the words, but Sid refuses to promise anything more than that. “Can I get suppressants from you, or do I need to get a prescription filled somewhere?”

Dr. Vyas is silent for a moment, eyes assessing as he looks Sid over. “I can give you suppressants,” he finally says, “but I’m only going to give you a three months’ supply.”

Sid wonders briefly how hard it would be to push for more, to convince Dr. Vyas to bump it up a couple months or even for the whole season. They have a title to defend, a Cup to keep in Pittsburgh, and Sid needs to be healthy and heat-free in order to make that happen.

“I’m giving you a three months’ supply,” Dr. Vyas repeats like he can read Sid’s thoughts. “When those run out, we’ll do a check-up and see if things have improved. If symptoms get worse before then, please let me know. You’re okay now, Sid, but these situations can take a turn for the worse very quickly, and I don’t want to see that happen to you.”

“It won’t,” Sid promises. “I’ll take the suppressants and make sure to spend some extra time around alphas, and in three months, this won’t even be a problem.”

Exhaling heavily, Dr. Vyas straightens the papers and slides them back into the folder. “Sid, this is going to be a ‘problem’ until you find a mate. It’s not like an injury or illness that will go away with enough time and medication. Your symptoms are going to persist until you start seriously seeking out a mate, and if you don’t, they will get worse.”

Sid nods once. “I understand. Can I get the suppressants now?”

Dr. Vyas sighs. “Yes.” He stands, shuffles out of the office, and returns a few minutes later with a nondescript white bag. “Take one with your birth control every day,” he tells him, holding the bag out. “You might have some headaches or nausea, but if it persists or if you experience anything worse than that, let me know.”

“I will. Thank you.” Sid takes the bag and shakes Dr. Vyas’ hand before heading out the door, clutching the paper sack tightly to keep the pills from rattling too loudly.

When he gets home, he sets the bottle beside the birth control in his cabinet and spends longer than he’d like staring at it, frustration and annoyance coursing through him.

\----

He takes a little, pink pill every morning, washing it down with a glass of water and shrugging off the echo he hears telling him he needs to find a mate, needs to settle down, needs an alpha to balance him out.

What he needs is to be there for his team, needs to get them to the playoffs, needs to defend his Cup.

\----

“Let’s go kick some Flyers’ ass!” Rusty shouts when the bus pulls into the Wells Fargo Center, and everyone responds with whoops and hollers, shouting about revenge for the last game and chirping each other and the Flyers.

Sid stands and follows Marc down the stairs, gaze fixed on some distant point as the cameras flock around them. He counts the steps to the door, then the steps from the door to the locker room, and lets the rhythm of routine wash over him, comforting and familiar.

Methodically, he strips out of his suit, hangs each piece in his stall, and pulls on his warm-ups. He tapes his sticks next and heads to the small visitors’ gym to put a couple miles in on the treadmill before running through his stretches.

There’s a restless energy buzzing beneath his skin, pressing at his edges until he feels too small to contain it.

Shaking himself, he hops up and heads into the hallway where he can already hear the irregular thump, thump, thump of a ball on shoes or heads. He slides into a spot beside Horny and traps the ball neatly when it comes his way before volleying it over to Geno, who shouts in outrage when it soars over his head.

“Too high, Sid!” he complains, jogging down the hall to collect the ball. “Know I’m much taller than you, but not that tall.”

Sid rolls his eyes but doesn’t respond. The gentle buzz has become an insistent hum, zipping through him and making him feel aware of every drop of sweat on his skin, every squeak of a sneaker on the floor, every odd scent that passes by.

He can smell the lingering traces of Schultzy’s cologne and the heavy stench of sweat-soaked pads, the foul odor of burned popcorn and the crisp scent of fresh ice. Overlaying the cacophony, he can smell the forest after a heavy rain, the heat of the sun on a summer day, and the salty tang of blood, warm and ferric.

“Sid!” someone shouts, and the ball smacks against the wall beside him, rubber on cinderblock. He startles and turns to his teammates, blinking slowly, his mind foggy and distant.

“Sid?” Marc says softly, concern tinging his tone. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he responds, but it sounds so far away, the frenetic pace of his heart nearly drowning the words out.

Marc steps closer and reaches a hand out, carefully wrapping it around Sid’s elbow. “Are you sure? You look a bit sick. Do you have a fever?” Before Sid can even reply, Marc has a hand pressed to his forehead, fingers cool on the admittedly heated skin.

The touch grates at Sid, unwanted and unwelcome. “I’m fine,” he says, pushing at Marc’s forearm until he steps back.

“You’re warm.”

“We’re doing warm-ups. Of course, I'm warm.”

Marc doesn’t look convinced.

“I’m going to go grab a snack,” Sid says, even though it’s ten minutes before he would normally leave, and Marc’s frown deepens. Sid doesn’t give him the chance to reply, striding down the hallway with a brief goodbye aimed at the other guys.

The further he gets from the team, the stronger the smell of rain and sun and blood gets, until Sid can practically taste it, the cloying aroma thick on his tongue and in the back of his throat. He knows he probably looks like a moron, mouth hanging open as he sucks in deep, gasping breaths, but he doesn’t care. He’s never smelt anything like this, never smelt something that felt like cool water on his skin and fire in his belly.

He wants to chase the scent down, wants to roll in it until it blends with his own. He wants to press his face into the source and never leave.

“You lost, Crosby?” a familiar voice drawls, and Sid freezes.

Slowly, he spins, dread settling in his stomach like a rock. Giroux raises a single ginger brow at him, clearly unimpressed.

“Your locker room’s that way,” he says, pointing back in the direction Sid had come. “I suggest you get back to your team.”

Sid has no desire to turn around. The scent is close, so close. If he could just get past Giroux, he could find out where it’s coming from, could bury his nose in it and suck in slow breaths until he feels drugged.

“Crosby, you alright?” Giroux asks, and the worry in his voice shakes Sid out of whatever daze he’s been in.

“I’m fine,” he snaps quickly, and Giroux’s face closes off, smoothing into a blank mask. “I must have taken a wrong turn.”

“Ten years in the league, and you still can’t get around our arena?” Giroux asks, doubtful.

Sid shrugs, unwilling to admit that he knows the layout of Wells Fargo almost perfectly but that his knowledge doesn’t help when he’s trying to find a scent rather than a place.

Giroux eyes him suspiciously. “Guess I’ll see you on the ice,” he finally says, and Sid nods, spinning around to head back to the locker room, though each step feels harder than the last, his feet dragging over the ground unwillingly.

When he’s back in the locker room, pulling off his warm-ups and grabbing his pads, he becomes uncomfortably aware of the slick wetness of his ass, the familiar stickiness that makes every movement feel overdone.

Fuck.

Trembling, he hurries to the bathroom and locks himself in one of the stalls.

God, this isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. Not now, not here. He has a game to play, a game against Philly. He can’t go into heat; he can’t step out on the ice smelling like an omega bitch ready to be mounted.

FUCK!

Shakily, he draws a long line of toilet paper from the holder and shoves it down the back of his shorts, wiping perfunctorily at the mess of slick and sweat. He bites down on the moan that wants to escape at the contact and flushes the paper down the toilet.

“Fuck. Fuck, this can’t happen. Please don’t let this happen,” he pleads, tipping his head to rest it against the cool metal of the stall door. “Please. Not against the Flyers, not against fucking Giroux.”

He takes a few unsteady breaths and tries to think of the least heat-evoking images possible: dead puppies, a puck to the face, his omega grandma.

“Please, please, please, please,” he whispers. “Just give me a couple hours, just enough to win the game. I can have a heat tonight, just not now. Not here.”

The scent is probably faint, weak compared to a real, full-blown heat scent, but it only takes one guy getting too close, one guy sticking his nose where he shouldn’t for Sid to become an even bigger joke to Philly than he already is.

Feeling only a bit calmer, he shoves away from the door and pulls it open, marching towards the sink to splash cold water on his face.

“Just a couple hours,” he says, looking in the mirror. “Just a couple.”

\----

He gets his couple hours and a couple goals, too, coming away with a victory that feels better than most.

When the guys talk about hitting up one of the few bars that won’t kick them out, Sid turns them down and heads back to the hotel, clutching his suit jacket in front of him when his body decides it no longer cares about the inappropriateness of popping a boner and leaking slick in public.

Almost mindless with the need to get on his knees and present, Sid stumbles into his room and throws the chain and bar lock in place. Then he peels his suit off with a single-minded determination, leaving a trail of clothes to the bed where he collapses face-first and draws his knees up under him, presenting for an alpha that isn’t there.

“Fuck,” he whines when he presses a finger to his entrance and it slides in with little resistance, sinking to the knuckle. “Fuck.” He’s forgotten what this was like, hasn’t had a heat since he presented at fifteen and received a prescription for birth control a week later.

The heat burns beneath his skin, in his gut, in his ass where a single finger isn’t enough. It’s not enough. It’s not. He pulls it out and pushes a second in, whimpering at the stretch and shifting to find a more comfortable position. When he tilts forward, his fingers graze his prostrate, and he nearly comes from that alone.

“God,” he hisses, working the fingers in, in, in and hitching his hips back to meet them. “Shit.”

The pressure is good, so good, and he knows he’s close, can feel the way his nipples get tight and his skin flushes hotly. He’s almost there, almost.

But he can’t get there.

His fingers aren’t big enough, aren’t full enough, and they can’t swell like a knot or fill him with come. Groaning in frustration, he arches his back and adds another, grinding them in until he can barely breath.

He needs an alpha.

He needs his alpha.

The taste and smell of sun-blood-rain is suddenly thick in his nose and mouth, cloying and perfect.

“Alpha,” Sid whines, and he drops onto his chest and presses a hand to the back of his neck, grip tight on his nape. “Alpha.”

The memory of the scent is heavy in the air, pressing against him like a physical thing, and he regrets not finding the source. He should have ignored Giroux’s warning, should have chased the scent until he found an alpha’s neck that he could bury his face in, should have presented like a good little omega and let himself get fucked until it took.

Sid keens at the thought, hips working furiously as he chases his orgasm, and he imagines what it would be like to let an alpha fuck him bare when he’s off his birth control and the goddamn heat suppressants that aren’t doing shit right now. He wonders how long it would take to get pregnant, if they’d manage in one heat, in one fuck.

“Alpha, please,” Sid whimpers, even though there’s no one there, no one to hear his desperate cries. “I want it. I want it.”

He tightens his grip and pretends it’s the alpha, the sun-blood-rain alpha who could pin him down and fuck him just right, fuck him until he had a kid or two. He pictures a beautiful little baby that smells like him and his alpha and trembles with it, goosebumps erupting across his skin.

“Come on,” he whines. “Come on. Give it to me. I want it. I want it.”

He tries to spread his fingers, tries to pretend like it’s an alpha’s knot opening him up, and he lets his fingernails bite into the skin of his neck, leaving red crescents in the pale flesh.

“Alpha!” he shouts, tipping over the edge.

His vision whites out for a moment, the only sound the rush of blood in his ears. He can feel his cock give a weak pulse, dribbling out the opaque come he’s always hated, and he shudders.

“Fuck,” he groans. “Fuck!”

Shame wells in his chest, settling like a stone beneath his breastbone, and he scrambles out of bed gracelessly, legs shaky post-orgasm. As he takes in the abandoned clothes, the mused bedspread, and the small splash of come he’d left, bile rises in his throat, hot and acidic.

He can’t—

He shouldn’t have—

This was a mistake.

Humiliated, he tears the duvet off the bed and tosses it to the floor. Then, he gathers each item of clothing, folds them up, and lays them in a pile on the desk. When he’s finished, he steps into the shower and turns the water as hot as it will go, letting it wash over his skin in a burning torrent.

He wipes himself down mechanically, scrubbing over the skin until it’s red and he can’t feel the places he touched anymore, the places he wanted his alpha to touch.

After too long under the hot spray, he shuts the water off, pulls on a pair of briefs, and crawls beneath the top sheet, tears pricking at his eyes when he catches the lingering scent of his heat.

\----

By the next morning, his heat has passed, and it’s like it never happened.

They head back to Pittsburgh, and he keeps taking a little, pink pill every morning.

He doesn’t go into heat again.

October bleeds into November, then December. He manages to convince Dr. Vyas to renew his prescription another three months. After all, there have been no side effects, and while his hormone levels haven’t improved, they haven’t gotten worse.

December passes into January, then February.

They’re winning. Not as much as Sid would like; never as much as Sid would like. But they’re winning.

At the beginning of March, he promises Dr. Vyas that he’ll meet with his local bonding clinic back home after the season ends. He’ll request they organize a couple meetings with unmated alphas who are also looking for mates and see if any of them feel right. The promise is enough to get him a four-month supply of heat suppressants, enough to get him through all of June.

He restocks his cabinet and takes the pill every morning. It’s become part of his routine.

\----

When he steps into Wells Fargo, his entire body seizes up, and he stumbles over his own feet. Beside him, Marc wraps a hand around his elbow to keep him upright.

“Whoa, Sid, are you alright?” he asks, concern furrowing his brow.

Straightening, Sid nods. “Yeah, just got distracted for a minute.”

Marc narrows his eyes at him, suspicious, but he doesn’t say anything more, following Sid to the locker room where they change for warm-ups and go their separate ways.

Sid does a couple miles on the treadmill to get his blood flowing, then slides into his stretches, counting off in English and in French when his mind begins to wander.

After, he makes his way to the hall for the game of two-touch and tries to keep from sucking in great lungfuls of air. That sun-blood-rain scent is back, thick and heady, nearly overwhelming, and Sid can feel the first stirrings of heat in his gut.

Fuck.

The ball lands at his feet, startling him, and bounces against his shins before rolling towards Hags. Geno and Horny boo loudly, while Kris and Kuny give him curious looks. Sid shakes himself and steps out of the circle with an apology and a half-hearted threat to get them in the next round. Hags picks up the ball, and they start again, cheering when Schultzy dives to keep the ball in play and laughing when Olli can’t pull off a decent header.

Sun-blood-rain coats Sid’s tongue and throat, and he can feel his temperature rising, creeping higher the longer he spends breathing that scent in.

He wants to know where it’s coming from. He needs to. It smells good and right; it smells like home. His bed after a long road trip; the Grand Lake house after a long season; his parents’ place when he needs the scent and feeling of family and bond around him.

“What you think about so hard?” Geno asks, jostling Sid’s elbow, and he blinks a few times before looking up at him.

From this close, Geno’s scent almost drowns out the sun-blood-rain. Actually, that might be a little too generous. Sid can still smell the sun-blood-rain, still feels on edge and desperate to find it, but Geno’s scent makes the need a little less immediate, a little less urgent. It’s familiar to Sid, almost as familiar as his own family’s, and there’s a comfort in that. They aren’t a bonded group, not in the traditional sense, but they’ve played together long enough that, if Sid can’t have home and parents and Taylor, he can go over to Geno’s and know he’ll be welcomed with open arms and no questions. Geno understands what it’s like to miss family.

Sid grins at him. “That I’m going to kick your ass as soon as we start the next game.”

Geno scoffs and tosses an arm around Sid’s shoulders. “You only think you going to kick my ass, but is me that kick your ass. I’m always win.”

Sid looks at him, then looks at the remaining circle of players, pointed.

Geno scowls. “Was not my fault. Horny give bad pass. Very bad passer, Horny, just like on ice.”

Sid rolls his eyes. “Whatever you have to say to keep your pride.”

“Sid,” Geno tuts. “Is not about pride is about truth.”

“Sure.”

“Truth,” Geno repeats, then leans in. “But seriously, you okay?” he asks, all traces of joking gone. “You smell a little…” he shrugs, “strong.”

A flush creeps up Sid’s neck. “I’m fine.”

Geno frowns at him. “Is truth, Sid?”

There are perks to knowing each other for so long, and there are downsides. “Yeah.”

Geno squints at him, clearly not believing the lie. “What going on, Sid? Is problem you not telling me about?”

“There’s no problem.”

Ducking close, Geno sniffs at him. “Scent say different.”

Sid jabs him with an elbow until he backs off. “Geez, Geno, you know it’s rude to smell people like that.”

Geno flaps a dismissive hand. “Is rude to smell strangers and people I’m not close to. Not rude to smell you. Is sign of love.”

Sid snorts and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, for sure. Love. That’s what we’ll call it.”

“Sid,” Geno says, fixing him with a firm glare, “is love. Now, be honest, is something going on? Should you play tonight?”

Sid recoils. “Of course, I’m going to play, G. What the fuck. This isn’t going to keep me out of the line-up, especially not against the fucking Flyers.”

Oh.

Oh god.

Look, Sid hasn’t forgotten where they are. He knows they’re in Philly, in Wells Fargo Center. He knows they’re about to play the Flyers and beat them like they have twice already this season. However, he hadn’t really made the connection between the sun-blood-rain scent and their opponents.

Fuck.

“So is something going on,” Geno says.

All of Sid’s mental energy is going into containing an apocalyptic meltdown, so he can only nod. “It’s not a big deal, G. I promise.” When he doesn’t look convinced, Sid tacks on, “It’s not an injury or anything that would keep me from playing, and Dr. Vyas already knows about it. If it were a problem, he’d keep me off the ice.”

Geno still doesn’t look satisfied, but he doesn’t push any further. “If become problem, you tell me, yes.”

“Of course.”

As Geno and his alpha scent move away, the sun-blood-rain comes back full force, and Sid excuses himself from the game. It’s time for his snack anyways.

As he prepares his peanut butter and jelly, his mind spirals.

It’s the same scent he had caught in October, the same scent that pushed him into a pseudo heat, the same scent that is pushing him towards another pseudo heat now. He had first smelt it here in Wells Fargo, home of the motherfucking Flyers.

Sid takes a vicious bite of his sandwich, even though he wants to throw up.

God, what if it’s a Flyer? What if that perfect, heat-inducing scent is one of the Flyers? How fucked up does the universe have to be for that to happen?

Chewing furiously, he glares at the countertop.

When he had promised Dr. Vyas that he would meet with unmated alphas, he had mostly said it to get a renewed prescription, but now, he thinks that’s probably a good idea. If he’s slicking over one of the fucking Flyers, he clearly needs to find a mate or at least someone to date until his body settles down again.

Man, fuck the Flyers and their fucking arena with its clearly subpar ventilation.

\----

By the time they hit the ice, Sid has calmed down some.

While demolishing the last of his sandwich, he had realized he hadn’t smelt the sun-blood-rain when they played the Flyers in the Stadium Series three weeks ago. He hadn’t even gotten a whiff, which meant it wasn’t one of the players. Granted, a trainer or a member of the rink staff wasn’t much better, but that was already a step up.

He focuses on warm-ups, pushing aside the pleasant warmth boiling in his gut, and sticks close to Geno, Marc, or Kris in the huddle, subtly trying to breathe in their scent to block out the other. Marc gives him a funny look when he catches him, but he doesn’t say anything, just cuffs Sid’s shoulder and tells him to stop being such a freak. Sid takes it for the ‘I love you, and you can sniff me anytime you want’ that it is.

When puck drops, he puts his head down and goes to work.

It’s not his best game.

Okay.

It’s not his worst game.

But it’s still nothing to write home about. A 4-0 loss that stings even more when he has to excuse himself to the restroom before media to wipe the mess of slick from between his legs.

Back at the hotel, he waves goodnight to Marc and Kris, slips into his room, and face plants on the bed, heat coursing through him, demanding relief after hours of being ignored.

He tries to keep his mind off the sun-blood-rain alpha this time, clutching at his dignity with a white-knuckled grip, and he mostly succeeds. He only calls for the alpha once, and he takes care of himself on his back, refusing to present for an alpha that isn’t there.

\----

When they play the Flyers a week and a half later, he isn’t expecting the sun-blood-rain scent. He had decided it probably belonged to someone in the rink staff (a security guard or one of the poor concession workers), so he wouldn’t have to deal with it tonight.

His guard is down, senses open to the world, so when he steps onto the ice and is hit with a wave of sun-blood-rain, he nearly loses his balance. Geno gets a hand in his jersey and turns the move into an awkward over the back hug, not something they would normally do, but it’s better than being a professional hockey player who can’t keep his skates under him.

“Okay?” Geno asks, voice low.

Sid nods and slips out of his hold.

He keeps his eyes on their end of the ice during warm-ups and tries to block out the scent and the way it makes him want to get on his knees and present. He feels rattled, unsteady on his skates. At least before, he had had time to get used to the scent before puck drop, time to acclimate so he didn’t feel like he was drowning in it. Now he feels like he’s been thrown into a stormy sea, fighting the roaring waves and swirling waters.

When Sully calls them in, Sid presses between Geno and Marc and takes a few deep breaths as Sully talks. Marc shoves his glove in Sid’s face, and it smells awful, but it does the trick. Sid shoots him a grateful look, and Marc answers with a narrow-eyed ‘you’re welcome’. He’ll probably pull him aside after the game and demand answers, but that’s a problem for future Sid. Present Sid just needs to get through this fucking game without face planting in one of the Flyers’ necks.

He does a decent job.

It’s tight through the first two periods, a hard fight for every puck, every rebound. He digs his skates in, grits his teeth against the hard checks, and snaps back when anyone goes a little too far with their chirps.

He doesn’t have any points going into the third, but he’s determined to change that. The Flyers have a one-goal lead; that’s nothing. That’s barely a deficit.

A minute in, the Flyers score again, and Sid wheels around the goal, berating himself for not getting back fast enough. He heads for center ice but grinds to a halt when the sun-blood-rain passes in front of him. It’s louder (if a scent can be loud) and drenched in excitement, fresh off a goal.

Sid shouldn’t look. He shouldn’t look. He abso-fucking-lutely should not look.

He looks.

A white jersey passes on his right, a bold, orange 11 on the back with Konecny spelled out above it.

Sid’s stomach rolls.

Konecny laughs at something Weise says, and as he turns away, shaking his head, their eyes meet. It’s only a moment, a half-second, but it feels longer, feels unbearably long.

Konecny falters, the smile dropping off his face, and his scent grows darker, headier as he looks at Sid. The moment stretches out, and Sid is sure his own scent is doing terrible things right now, responding automatically to the smell of an unmated, clearly receptive alpha.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Sid,” Rusty calls out, swatting at Sid’s shin pads, “you taking the face-off?”

The moment snaps, shattering between them, and Konecny continues to the bench for fist bumps as Sid skates for center ice.

Fuck.

_Fuck_.

He doesn’t know much about Konecny, but he knows enough. He’s young, a rookie in his first season if Sid’s not mistaken. He talks shit from puck drop to the final horn. He isn’t afraid to get into scraps or cross check someone who’s pissing him off. And to top it all off, he’s a goddamn Flyer.

A ridiculous part of Sid thinks ‘Well, at least he’s Canadian,’ but he ignores that and goes to take the faceoff.

The game only gets worse from there, devolving into a nasty 6-2 loss that feels infinitely worse when they go through the handshake line and he can feel the weight of Konecny’s eyes on him from the start. He mumbles out a good game, but Konecny says nothing back, fingers gripping Sid’s hand a little tighter than is normal. He shakes him off and offers his hand to the next guy, ignoring the eyes he can feel on his back.

He rushes through postgame, giving the media particularly bland answers and hopping in and out of the shower in record time. The heat is nearly unbearable by the time he’s dressed, and he has to fight to stay below the speed limit on his drive home.

Inside, he flings himself onto the bed and shoves a hand down his pants. It’s harried and inelegant, fingers rough as they push in, but he can’t slow down. He can’t give himself time to think. Otherwise, he’ll think of Konecny and his heavy gaze, his hand in Sid’s and his scent in his nose. He’ll think of the interest he saw sparking in his eyes and the arousal staining his scent. And he shouldn’t think about that. He really shouldn’t.

He does though.

\----

The next morning, he takes his birth control and heat suppressants, and he buries the memory of last night in the depths of his mind. They have a week and a half of the season left, then playoffs.

They’re going to win the first round, then the second, then the third.

They’re going to win the Cup again. Sid just needs one more Cup, just one more. After that, he can start looking for a mate. He can meet a couple alphas, try a date or two, and let his hormones level out in time for the next season. Dr. Vyas had said he didn’t need to bond; he just needed to spend more time around unmated alphas. He could do that.

He could.

But he doesn’t.

They win the Cup in six.

They return to Pittsburgh for the parade. Then he heads home for a more personal celebration. Media people trail him from place to place, pushing microphones and cameras in his face because they don’t want to miss a moment. When he isn’t celebrating, he has publicity shoots and charity events and his hockey school. He always has somewhere to be, something to do, so meetings and mates are placed on the back burner.

He doesn’t go into heat though. In fact, despite his prescription running out at the beginning of July, he feels fine. Good, even. Steady.

He celebrates his thirtieth birthday surrounded by family, friends, and most of Halifax, the Cup never far, and he thinks he could do this again.

A threepeat isn’t unheard of. It’s happened before. Granted, the last time was in the early eighties, but people didn’t think they’d repeat this year, so anything is possible.

\----

“Did you meet with any alphas over the summer?” Dr. Vyas asks, mouth turned down as he looks at Sid.

Feeling like a student caught cheating on a quiz, Sid shifts in his seat. “There were a couple unmated alphas around,” he says, and it’s not untrue. He doesn’t need to mention that one of those was his sister.

Dr. Vyas shuffles a couple papers. “Yes, but did you _meet _with any alphas? I’m not talking about chance ruin-ins or time spent with friends. I mean official meetings with potential mates. You had said you wanted to register with a clinic and have them set up some meetings for you. Did that happen?”

Cowed, Sid shakes his head.

Dr. Vyas sighs wearily. “Sid, this is serious. Your numbers are worse than last year. Your hormone levels are dangerously elevated, and I worry that continued use of suppressants may have a negative impact on your fertility.”

Sid stiffens, head snapping up to look at him.

“Yes, Sid, they could impact fertility,” he says in answer to the unspoken question. “Heats are all about fertility. They are the moments an omega is most receptive to conception. Suppressing them, medically altering hormone levels to prevent them, can have a negative effect on future ability to conceive.” He folds his hands over the numerous printouts. “Now, I know you don’t want children yet, but I was under the impression that you planned to have a few after retirement. Continued use of suppressants may prevent you from ever realizing that aspiration.”

Sid clenches his jaw but stays silent.

“I am sure that’s not what you want to hear, and I am sure that this entire situation is very frustrating for you, but avoidance is no longer an option, Sid. You must start meeting alphas that you could, at some future date, form a bond with.”

“Is it enough that they’re unmated?” Sid asks.

“What do you mean? Mated alphas certainly couldn’t help.”

Sid waves a hand. “No, I know that. But is it enough that they’re unmated? Reaves, one of the new guys, is an alpha, and he doesn’t have a mate yet.”

Dr. Vyas’ mouth twists. “Reaves has a long-term partner,” he says. “They may not be bonded, but they are committed to one another. I don’t think spending time with him would do you much good.”

Sid bites back a curse.

“I know this is the worst-case scenario no matter how we spin it, so I’m not going to sugarcoat things, and I’m not going to pander, but I am going to help you as much as I can, however I can.”

Sid snorts, a touch derisive. “Yeah? You got an unmated alpha I can hang around for a couple hours every week?”

“Unfortunately not, but I have options for you. I know it feels like this is beyond your control and you have no choice, but I hope you can find some solace in knowing you can decide where to go from here.”

Scrubbing a hand over his chin, Sid leans forward and sighs. “Okay. What are my options?”

\----

The next week, Sid finds himself at a Boys and Girls club run by a friendly alpha, who shakes his hand and tells him she watched every game last season. She is kind and good with kids and clearly enjoys hockey, but Sid feels uneasy every time she drifts too close, like there’s an itch he can’t scratch.

A month later, he sits down for a one-on-one interview and meets a young guy fresh out of college, looking to earn a spot on the Pittsburgh beat. He has a nice smile and enough ambition to impress Sid, but he smells off, and Sid has to sip at his water throughout the entire interview, hoping it will settle his stomach.

In early November, he visits the Children’s Hospital and gets a personal tour from one of the doctor’s on staff, a tall, fit woman with a razor sharp wit and a knack for soothing frightened kids. She is great, easily someone Sid wouldn’t mind grabbing a friendly dinner with, but her touch grates at his skin when they shake hands, and he is relieved when the visit comes to an end.

As much as he hates the setups, he thinks they’re working. A month and a half into the season, and his hormone levels have dropped. Not significantly, Dr. Vyas tells him, but enough that they know it’s working. The thought of meeting more alphas makes his stomach churn, but if that’s the price he has to pay to continue living undisturbed by a mate and the expectation of children, he’ll do it.

He’ll do anything.

Which makes it so much worse when he steps into the arena on a Monday in late November and nearly keels over from the scent.

He knew they were playing the Flyers that night. He had stayed extra long at practice that morning, chatting with one of the unmated equipment managers, in preparation. If he had already spent time with an unmated alpha, his body shouldn’t react so viscerally to this particular alpha, right?

Wrong.

So very, very wrong.

The scent overwhelms him before he’s even fully through the doors. It smashes him over the head like a two-by-four and leaves him reeling. He stumbles in and braces a hand against the wall, thanking every deity known to man that no one else comes in as early as he does.

Blindly, he pushes forward, needing to get to the medical office, needing to get something for this. A pill, a shot. Hell, he’d take a hard check or another puck to the jaw over this.

“Whoa,” someone says when Sid staggers around the corner, and a hand grips his elbow, touch hot even through Sid’s button-down and jacket. “Hey, are you okay?”

He’s drowning in the sun-blood-rain, and if he wasn’t already certain it was Konecny’s scent, he sure as hell would be now.

“Crosby,” Konecny says, voice gentle. “Are you okay? Are you sick?”

Sid lets out a strangled laugh. How fucking young is this kid that he doesn’t recognize the smell of an omega in heat?

“Crosby,” Konecny says, giving him a light shake. “Sidney, come on.”

Sid lolls his head back to look at him and abruptly decides that was a terrible choice because Konecny is looking at him like he wants to eat him, like he wants to push Sid to the ground and fuck into him, hard and rough, but his voice doesn’t have any of that desperate need. It’s soft and soothing and careful, restrained in a way Sid didn’t think he ever was.

“Sidney, what’s going on? What is this?”

Sid laughs again. At himself for being so goddamn stupid, at Konecny for asking such a dumb question, at the entire situation they’ve found themselves in: Sid leaking slick and ‘fuck me now’ pheromones and Konecny clearly—_clearly—_being affected by them as they stand in a wide hallway in PPG.

“Do you need a doctor?” Konecny asks. “You’re burning up. Shit, you probably need a doctor.” He wraps an arm around Sid’s waist and turns toward the locker rooms. “They’ve got to be over here, right? That would make sense.”

Mildly delirious, Sid rolls his head on Konecny’s shoulder and draws in a deep breath of his scent. It’s even better up close.

“Fuck,” Konecny hisses, fingers gripping tight around Sid’s waist. “Fuck, you can’t do that. We need to get to the doctor. We need a fucking doctor.”

He is mostly dragging Sid at this point, and the fact that he can do that despite the twenty pounds Sid probably has on him makes Sid wetter than it should.

“You smell good,” he slurs, pressing close enough to brush his nose against Konecny’s neck.

Konecny jolts, and his scent gets a sharp edge to it, turning musky and potent. Sid wants to lick the flushed skin and find out if he tastes as good as he smells.

“Excuse me,” Konecny calls. “Excuse me, I need a doctor.”

Sid frowns at the words, then looks around them. They’re in one of the training rooms, surrounded by icing equipment and massage tables that probably wouldn’t hold the weight of two hockey players, despite how badly Sid wants to try.

Someone comes out of a side room and releases a shocked exclamation when they see them.

“What happened?” the trainer demands, stepping forward to take some of Sid’s weight as another says something about finding Dr. Vyas.

“I don’t know,” Konecny tells her, helping guide Sid to one of the tables. “I ran into him in the hallway, and he was like this. I don’t know what happened, but I think he’s in heat.”

So he does know something about it after all.

The trainer, a mated beta, rests a hand on his forehead, and Sid leans into the cool touch. “He’s definitely in heat,” she says. “You need to go.”

“What? No,” Konecny protests. “The doctor isn’t even here yet.”

“You’re an unmated alpha, and he’s an omega in heat,” she snaps. “Your presence is just going to aggravate it.”

“No, it won’t,” Konecny says, a hint of alpha edging the words.

The trainer scoffs. “I can smell you, kid. His heat is clearly affecting you, and the—frankly—suffocating pheromones you’re putting off in response are only making it worse. It’s an ingrained feedback loop. It’s what makes alphas go into rut during an omega’s heat and vice versa.”

Konecny scowls at her.

“Shit, kid, I’m serious,” she says, reaching out to push him away. He doesn’t budge. “Look,” she sighs, tone leveling out, “you have no right to be here. Yes, you found him, and we appreciate you bringing him here, but that doesn’t give you any right to stick around. You’re not his mate. You’re not a teammate. You’re the guy he’s supposed to be playing in a couple hours, so I suggest you head back to your locker room before I call someone to escort you back.”

“Fine,” Konecny spits, “but you better take care of him.”

The trainer gives him an odd look. “He’s our guy,” she says. “Of course, we’re going to take care of him. Now get out of here and find someplace to cool off before you trigger your own rut.”

Konecny frowns at her, but he obeys, giving Sid a last, lingering look before exiting.

Sid fights back a pathetic whimper as his scent begins to fade, getting further and further away.

“Geez, he’s protective,” the trainer says, reaching for Sid’s jacket. “Is it okay if I take this off? I don’t want you to overheat in a wool suit.”

Sid nods.

“I swear I’ve never seen anything like that,” she continues, helping Sid slide the jacket off. “The kid doesn’t even know you. Frankly, I would’ve expected someone from the Flyers to be happy about this. An uncontrolled heat could keep you out of the game.”

The words make Sid frown, but she shakes her head.

“We’ll get this under control, I promise. There are shots you can take for this sort of thing.” Leaning on the nearest table, she looks him up and down. “Though you’re pretty far into it already. I’m surprised you drove here safely. Hell, I’m surprised that kid had enough self-control not to try anything. You’re putting off enough pheromones to knock an alpha out.”

Sid flushes. Trainers never mince words, and while he usually appreciates the honesty, he thinks he could do without it this time.

Luckily, the other trainer returns with Dr. Vyas just behind him, sparing Sid anymore embarrassing revelations about the effect one alpha’s scent has on him.

\----

They end up giving him a shot, though Dr. Vyas tells him the heat will probably return within the next twenty-four hours.

“The shot delays onset,” he says, “but it can’t suppress a heat. Once one has started and especially once one has gotten as far as yours did, there’s no stopping it. These sorts of injections will only delay it, and they’re typically used in emergency situations like for first responders or soldiers who go into heat at a particularly bad time.”

“So I can still play?” Sid asks.

Dr. Vyas nods. “However, I think it would be wise if we run another blood test tomorrow. Your numbers over the last month have been steadily dropping. There was no reason for a heat onset, especially one so quick and strong. I’m worried we’re missing something. I don’t know what. We’ve looked at everything and more, but there has to be something we’re missing.”

Sid doubts that. Those tests probably don’t reveal anything about being particularly vulnerable to a specific alpha’s scent.

“Stick around after practice tomorrow,” Dr. Vyas tells him, “and we’ll see what we can find.”

Nodding, Sid thanks him, stands, and walks out, heading for the locker room.

\----

The heat hits in the middle of the night, and Sid wakes up soaked with sweat and slick. He shoves the covers off, kicking them to the foot of the bed as he works his shirt over his head. His skin is burning, and his pulse is racing. There’s an ache low in his belly, a pit so vast he isn’t sure anything could fill it.

After kicking his briefs off, he works a couple fingers into his dripping hole and rocks into them. When that does nothing to sate the fire in his belly, he adds a third. Then he adds a fourth. He thrusts them in and out with little finesse, curling them to find the spot that will make his spine melt, but even that doesn’t feel as good as it should.

He chases his orgasm with a single-minded focus, but it won’t come. His fingers don’t feel right; they aren’t enough.

Practically sobbing, he drags them out and rolls onto his knees. He knows he’ll hate himself for this in the morning. He knows he’ll berate himself for weeks. But that isn’t important right now. He needs to get off; he needs to stop the terrible burning.

He drops his shoulders onto the mattress and arches his back, ass lifted high in the air. Panting, he gets his fingers back in him and pulls them in and out in rapid thrusts like an alpha would when he’s fucking him. Like Konecny would if Sid ever let him. Electricity zips through him at the thought, bowing his spine and curling his toes.

Oh god.

Oh god.

Sid can imagine it. Konecny may have been controlled enough not to try anything earlier, but Sid hadn’t been so out of it he didn’t notice the effect his heat had on the young alpha. He can imagine him losing that careful control, pushing Sid onto his knees, and holding him down with a hand on his neck.

His hips stutter, and he twists his fingers deep inside him, shouting at the feeling.

Konecny would drape himself over Sid’s back and pin him to the bed with his alpha strength. He’d slide into Sid’s sopping hole and get his teeth in Sid’s neck. He’d pound into him with sharp, hard thrusts and drag Sid to the edge faster than he ever thought possible. He’d grip Sid’s hips, angle them how he wants, and drill into him until Sid was a shaking, crying mess.

Dragging in harsh breaths, Sid remembers the way Konecny had smelled. He always smells good. But at the rink, his scent had been so much better. Stronger, hotter, deeper. Sid had wanted to bury himself in it; he wants to now. He wants that scent over him and all around him, wants to be completely surrounded by the sun-blood-rain.

He sucks in a gasping breath, spreads his fingers, and comes.

His vision whites out; his back arches almost painfully; and his body trembles beneath the onslaught of pleasure.

When it finally passes, he finds himself starfished on the bed, shaky and weak. The sheets beneath him are sticky, tacky with come and slick, and smelling ripe with omega heat and desperation. Groaning, he looks over at the night stand and frowns at the glowing red numbers.

3:28.

Fuck.

Rolling onto his side to get out of the wet spot, he reaches for the blankets, hauls them over himself, and lets his eyes fall shut. He can deal with the mess tomorrow.

\----

By the look on Dr. Vyas’ face after practice the next day, Sid’s numbers aren’t great.

“That’s an understatement,” Dr. Vyas tells him when he says that out loud. “These numbers are…highly concerning. You’ve had spikes across the board. Frankly, if I didn’t know any better, I would think this was the blood test of an omega mid-heat. You’re on the edge, Sid, and after yesterday, it’s clear that you can fall off that edge at any point.”

It won’t happen again. Well, it won’t happen for another month at least, not until they play the Flyers in January. (Sid had checked the schedule when he woke up, shame twisting his gut for thinking of Konecny during his heat.) He can’t tell Dr. Vyas that though.

“What do you suggest I do to keep this under control?”

Sighing, he drops the blood report and looks at Sid. “Increase contact with unmated alphas. Maybe go on a few dates. Honestly, the best option would be to engage in sexual relations with an alpha—”

“No.”

“—but I know you have concerns about that.”

Concerns? _Concerns? _That sounds so pedestrian, so simple and quaint. Sid doesn’t have concerns. He has the certain knowledge that sex with an alpha will lead to bonding, which will lead to kids, which will keep Sid off the ice.

His parents have told him numerous times that it isn’t true. Unmated alphas and omegas can have sex without bonding, especially if on hormone levelers and birth control, respectively. There’s no reason for Sid not to spend some ‘quality time’ with an alpha. But he doesn’t want to. He can’t. If the threat of a bond isn’t enough to keep him out of an alpha’s bed, the idea of being that vulnerable in front of anyone, letting someone have access to his body like that, is definitely enough.

“So meet more alphas,” Sid says, ignoring the sex suggestion.

Dr. Vyas’ lips thin. “Meet more alphas.”

\----

Sid throws himself into it the same way he throws himself into everything.

He makes a goal to see how many unmated alphas he can talk to and how long he can talk to them. The numbers climb higher every week. It doesn’t matter if they’re young or old, male or female, dating someone or single. He’s not really looking for a mate. He just needs the contact to keep his hormones under control.

At each meeting, Dr. Vyas frowns over his blood tests, never quite looking satisfied, but he says Sid’s levels are dropping steadily, approaching something less urgently concerning.

Sid makes it through the games against the Flyers by the skin of his teeth. In every huddle, he sticks close to Reaves or Geno or Kris. He breathes in their scents and tries to shut out the sun-blood-rain coming from the other bench. On the ice, he keeps his eyes on the puck, on the goal, on the defenders who try to stop him, and refuses to even look Konecny’s way.

Konecny doesn’t seem to get the message though. Sid can feel his eyes on him all the time, intent and searching. He can smell the spike in his scent every time Sid passes too close or does something particularly impressive on the ice. He can sense the way Konecny lingers in the handshake line for a second too long, trying to get Sid to look at him, to acknowledge him in any way, but Sid never does. He keeps his eyes on the next guy in line and ignores the sour note that soaks Konecny’s scent as he skates away.

He knows he’s being extreme. He knows he’s taking his crazy ‘Sidness’ to the next level, but he doesn’t know any other way to deal with this. He just needs to get through the season without jumping Konecny in Wells Fargo.

\----

When they are matched up with the Flyers for the first round, Sid can’t help but feel like the universe is fucking with him. It’s like someone is saying ‘Four regular season games weren’t enough. Let’s toss in a few extra, and to make it more fun, they’ll be back to back to back.’

Fuck the universe, he thinks.

Fuck the universe, and fuck dynamics, and fuck whoever had a shitty enough sense of humor to make him an omega.

He grits his teeth through the first game and gets a hattrick for his trouble.

The second leaves him gasping on his hands and knees, heat coursing through his body in crashing waves. Konecny had scored early in the third. He had gotten a step on Ruh, exploded through the neutral zone, and sent the puck top shelf on Murs. The burst of proud, electrified sun-blood-rain scent had left Sid shaken and leaking, and he had stumbled through postgame, desperate to get home.

The games in Philly are a blur. Konecny’s scent is everywhere, sunken into the walls for all the time he spends there, and Sid can’t escape it. The brutal, demanding heats that follow are worse than the scrappy games. They come out with two wins though, and he wracks up six points.

Back in Pittsburgh, he feels more settled. Konecny’s scent isn’t oozing out of the walls, and Sid feels like he can breathe without choking on it even when he catches the first whiff that signals the Flyers’ arrival.

He goes through his pregame routine with extra care. Treadmill, stretches, two-touch, snack. Each exactly on time. Each grounding him as he prepares for the game. An old routine that settles him like nothing else.

“Sidney,” someone calls, and Sid spins around without thinking.

The scent hits him a half-second later, thick and strong and undeniably Konecny.

He has to brace a hand on the wall to keep himself upright.

“Whoa,” Konecny says, taking a step closer and reaching out. His fingers graze Sid’s arm, and it’s like brushing against the oven door or a seatbelt that’s been under the sun too long.

Sid steps back, steps out of reach, and mortification sweeps through him when he can feel the slick already pooling between his thighs.

Konecny snatches his hand away and holds it behind his back. “Sorry,” he says, wincing. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying…”

He trails off like he doesn’t know what to say. Sid doesn’t know what there is to say.

Konecny is quiet for a moment. Then his chest rises with a deep breath, and his head snaps up to look at Sid, pupils expanding like black holes. Sid bites back a whimper but can’t help the slick that wets his thighs at the sight and smell of Konecny.

“Sidney,” Konecny says, voice deeper than he’s ever heard it, rough and tinged with desire.

Shaking his head, Sid takes another step back. This can’t happen. This can’t happen now. This can’t happen ever. “I need to go,” he croaks. “I have to finish warmups. I need to get dressed. I have to be ready for the game. We have a game.”

Konecny frowns, but he stays in place, doesn’t follow after Sid. “After the game,” he begins, but Sid cuts him off.

“No. No. I have to go to my team. I’m their captain. I can’t—” He waves a hand through the air, encompassing whatever the hell this is. “They need me. We need to win. There are more rounds after this, more seasons. There’s no after the game. No ever.”

Hurt twists Konecny’s features, and Sid is tempted, so very tempted, to reach a hand out and smooth the wrinkles from his brow. He digs his nails into his palm to stop himself.

“No ever.” Konecny says it like a statement, but his eyes are asking, pleading.

Sid shakes his head. “Hockey,” he answers because that one word covers it all.

“Hockey,” Konecny repeats, looking at Sid like a puzzle he can’t solve.

Sid nods and takes another step back, despite every instinct screaming at him to get closer.

Biting his lip, Konecny looks Sid up and down, chest rising and falling with every breath. The pain in his features fades, replaced by a steely hardness Sid doesn’t care for. “Hockey isn’t everything, Sidney,” he says, firm and sure. “Some things are more important. This could be more important.” He gestures at them, the space between. “I know it’s pretty weird, and I know you might not want to—”

“No,” Sid says.

Konecny falls silent, watching him. Waiting for a clarification, an explanation, anything.

“My team,” Sid says. “I have to go.” He takes another couple steps back, and Konecny doesn’t stop him, though his scent sours. It’s acrid in Sid’s nose, bitter disappointment and wisps of humiliation. Sid’s stomach rolls, and he nearly gags from it.

“The game,” he says. It’s an excuse, an apology, an out that he seizes, spinning on his heel and scurrying away.

\----

They lose the game.

Sid spends the night wracked with heat and shame.

He feels shaky in the morning, unsteady, but he pushes himself out of bed and heads to the rink.

They have a series to win.

And they do. With a nasty 8-5 game six.

Sid doesn’t feel excitement when the final horn blows, just relief. It’s like crossing the line after a marathon, like scrambling over the boards after a two-minute shift. No energy for celebration, just a blind desire to sleep for days on end.

Not that he can.

They’ve moved on to the second round, and though the Caps are never an easy team, they seem particularly difficult this time.

Sid gives everything he’s got, but they lose in six, and just like that, the season is over.

Lockers are cleared out. Guys promise to keep in touch. And Dr. Vyas gives him a hard look before telling him that they’re going to have regular phone check-ins to make sure Sid actually keeps his word this year.

The thought of meeting alphas, especially for the purpose of finding a mate, leaves a bad taste in Sid’s mouth, but he can’t do anything about it. This isn’t like the concussion or the broken jaw. Time will make this worse, not better, so he heads home, swallows his pride, and goes in for an appointment at the bonding clinic.

The nurses, doctors, and specialists are all polite and respectful. They run tests, answer his questions, and help him fill out forms for initial meeting setups, no judgment on their faces.

“I think that will be all for today,” Jake, the mild-scented beta nurse, tells him. “We’ll contact you as soon as we have any matches.”

“Thank you,” Sid replies, strained after a day of needles, physicals, and far too many personal questions.

“It’s our pleasure, Sid. Take care.”

\----

He gets a call within a week, and the next day, he has a meeting set up for the following Tuesday.

“Well, that’s exciting,” Trina says over dinner, earnest and sincere. “Did they tell you anything about the alpha?”

Sid shakes his head. “They contact the omegas first. If the omega agrees, they ask the alpha. If both agree, then they set up a meeting.”

With a hum of understanding, Trina nods.

“How do you feel about it?” Troy asks, swirling some spaghetti onto his fork.

Sid shrugs. “You know how I feel about all of this.” They’ve heard it enough over the years since Sid presented. He’s a broken record at this point.

Trina gives him a sympathetic look. “I know this is already hard for you, but are you sure doing it through the clinic isn’t going to make it all harder?”

“If I don’t do it through the clinic, I’m not going to do it at all,” he says, stabbing a leaf of lettuce. “This is easier. There’re no games, no chances at miscommunication or crossed wires. We all know why we’re there and what the goal is.”

To his left, Taylor huffs and knocks their ankles together. “Geez, Sid, you make it sound like a chore.”

“It is a chore.”

She arches an unconvinced brow. “Only because you’re making it one. It doesn’t have to be. You could end up really liking one of the alphas you meet.”

Sid shrugs. That’s the point, isn’t it? Finding an alpha he can tolerate; finding someone he could maybe, possibly see some kind of future with.

“There are some good ones out there,” Taylor says. “I know a lot of the alphas in the league can be a bit old school, but they’re the exception. And anyways, none of them are going to be at a bonding clinic in Nova Scotia, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

Snorting, Sid rolls his eyes and gives her feet a light kick. “Yeah, that’d be the worst if I walked in and it was Tom Wilson or something.”

They all make similar faces of disgust.

“That’d be the worst,” Taylor echoes, and the discussion of Sid’s impending meeting ends there.

\----

When he makes it home from the clinic, he is frustrated.

It’s been over two months. He’s met twenty-seven different alphas and went on dates with ten, but none of them felt right. Actually, they all felt distinctly wrong. Throughout every initial meeting and first date, his skin crawled; his stomach churned; and his heart beat frantically, wanting to get out and away from these strange alphas.

It doesn’t make any sense. They had all been nice. They all knew who he was, but most hadn’t cared, treating him like any other omega at a first meeting. They had been polite, friendly, some even flirty, but Sid had left every meeting or date with the certainty that he didn’t want that alpha.

He kicks his shoes off at the door and drops his keys on the entryway table. In the kitchen, he grabs a water bottle and leans against the counter, sighing.

His phone pings, and when he pulls it out, it’s a picture from Marc, Scarlett and Estelle beaming up at the camera in matching swimsuits. Something in his chest twists, and he taps the phone icon before he can stop himself.

“Sid, mon ami, how are you?” Marc greets cheerily, the sound of screeching children in the background.

“Good,” Sid says, though it feels like a lie.

Marc hums, always the best at seeing through Sid’s bullshit. “Yeah? And how is the hunt going?”

A flush heats Sid’s cheeks. “Shut up,” he mumbles. “Quit calling it that.”

“What? It’s true. You’re an omega on the hunt, searching for the alpha that will make all your dreams come true.”

A loud shriek spills across the line, followed by a splash, and Sid swallows. Dreams indeed.

“But seriously, Sid,” Marc continues, softer, “how is it going? Have you liked any of them?”

Sid fiddles with the lid of his bottle for a second as he tries to figure out how to say this without making it sound as bad as it is. “It’s going alright. I’ve met some different alphas.”

“And?”

Dropping the lid, Sid leans against the counter. “And nothing,” he admits. “I’ve met twenty-seven and only accepted a first date with ten, but I think that’s mostly because they were—” He falters, and Marc makes an encouraging noise, waiting Sid out with the patience of a father. “It’s mostly because they were women.”

“I thought you preferred men.”

Sid crosses his arms. “I do. I mean, I’m pretty sure I do, but it’s weird. Every guy I’ve met just doesn’t smell right. As soon as they come in the room, I want to get up and find some fresh air. The women were all nice, and they didn’t smell as…off-putting as the guys, so I thought I’d give it a try. Maybe preferences change some over time, you know?” He rubs a hand through his hair and sighs. “But when we went on dates, I just wasn’t feeling it. They were nice, and I could see myself being friends with them, but…”

“But you’re not looking for a friend.”

Letting out a heavy breath, Sid nods. “I’m not looking for a friend.”

They sit in comfortable silence for another minute before Marc speaks again. “You know, before Véro and I bonded, a lot of other unbonded omegas started smelling wrong to me. It was weird. Even you smelled off, and I couldn’t figure out why. When I went into a bond specialist, she told me that Véro and I had probably developed a prebond. It happens when an alpha and omega are particularly compatible.”

Marc clears his throat and continues. “She also said prebonds can be one-sided, and they can happen even if two people aren’t seeing each other. They can happen even if one person already has a bond,” he adds quietly. “Especially if the alpha and omega spend a lot of time together.”

Sid’s brow furrows. “What are you saying? You think I have a one-sided prebond with someone? I mean, I met a lot of unmated alphas this year, but I didn’t spend more than a few hours with them. Outside of hockey, I don’t really spend any time with alphas, mated or unmated, that aren’t in my family.”

Marc is quiet for a moment. “But you hang out with a lot of alphas inside of hockey. There are quite a few on the Pens. You’re pretty close to some of them.”

“Yeah, but they’re all bonded,” Sid replies, trying to figure out where Marc is going with this.

Marc sighs. “I already said you can have a one-sided prebond with someone who’s already bonded. It happens.”

Sid shakes his head.

“Come on, Sid. It wouldn’t be totally crazy if you had developed a prebond with Kris or something. You two have been friends for years; you’re very close. Or, you know, Geno.”

Sid lets out a squawk of protest, but Marc talks over him.

“I was there his first season in Pittsburgh, Sid. I could smell the way you reacted to him.”

His cheeks are on fire.

“It’s okay. You know I wouldn’t judge you for anything, especially not this.”

“I don’t have a prebond with Geno!” Sid cries. “That’s—I mean—I know I probably…had a crush on him or something when he first came over, but that’s all it was. And I got over it pretty fast when I realized he was only into women.”

Marc makes a noncommittal noise.

“It’s not him, Marc,” Sid says, and he knows it isn’t. Maybe Marc is right about the prebond, but he’s not right about it being for Geno. “It’s not. I accepted nothing was ever going to happen there a long time ago, and I’m really okay with that. We’re friends, and that’s all I want with him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

Marc doesn’t say anything more for a minute, and Sid listens to the girls running around in the background, laughing and shouting, calling for Marc or Véro to “Regarde! Regarde! Regarde!” He feels empty, hollow, incomplete. No children, no mate. His chest aches like it did his first season at Rimouski, when he missed his family so much it kept him up at night.

“Okay,” Marc says, pulling Sid out of his thoughts. “I believe you. It’s not Geno, and it’s not another guy on the team. But there’s someone, isn’t there? There’s definitely someone.”

Sid shrugs. “Maybe, but I don’t know who it could be. Like I said, I haven’t spent a lot of time with alphas outside of my family and the team. But it’s not anyone on the team, and it’s not anyone here either. I don’t get it, man. Shouldn’t I be able to tell who I have a damn prebond with?”

“Not necessarily. I’m no expert, but the specialist said prebonds form when an alpha and omega are particularly compatible. You know as well as I do that compatibility doesn’t always rely on time. You can just click with someone.”

Sid blows out a breath. “Sure, I guess, but I would’ve noticed clicking with someone, right? I would have to know by their scent or something that they’re right for me, but no one smells right.”

“No one smells right right now,” Marc gently corrects. “But I bet someone has smelt right in the past. When was the last time you smelt an alpha and weren’t put off by the scent?”

Sid freezes up, jaw clenching and hands curling into fists. “I don’t know,” he says because no. No, no, no, no, no. No.

Marc huffs. “Work with me, Sid. I’m just trying to help you. Maybe it’s someone you met briefly. Maybe it’s someone you’ve run into a couple times. When was the last time you scented someone and thought, ‘Damn, I want all up on that?’”

Sid chokes out a laugh, semi-hysterical.

“I’m serious, Sid. It happens to all of us. I still think that when I scentmark Véro. She’s the best thing I’ve ever smelled. Ever.”

Sid shakes his head, laughter stilted and wooden, and Marc groans.

“Come on, Sid. Be honest with me. Don’t act like you’ve never gotten hot over someone’s scent. I already told you that I could smell you slicking over Geno.”

A gasp spills out of Sid’s lips, and he thinks his face is probably the same shade of red as the Hawks jersey at this point. “Your kids are there,” he hisses. “You can’t say that kind of stuff.”

Marc tuts. “They aren’t close enough to hear, and they’re not paying attention. Anyways, if they did hear, I would tell them what it meant in terms they understand. We believe in a healthy sex education in this house. Now, tell me, Sid. Who was the last alpha whose scent got you hot? Was it at a charity event? At the store? At a meet and greet? During a game?”

Sid shakes his head. That’s not a rabbit hole he should go down. That’s not a path he should even consider. Do not enter. Turn around now. That’s bad. That’s the worst.

That’s sun-blood-rain filling the air. Konecny’s hand grazing Sid’s arm for a split second. The immediate rush of heat that had followed. The slick that had coated his shorts. Konecny sniffing the air. His eyes going dark. The way he had said Sid’s name, desperate and needy, but hadn’t pushed forward and demanded. Sid stepping away, rambling excuses. Konecny’s face falling for a split second before hardening. Him telling Sid hockey wasn’t everything. Him letting Sid walk away.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

Fuck.

Fucking hell.

“Sid?” Marc says like he’s said it a couple times already, like he’s a bit worried for Sid and his silence.

“Shit,” Sid says, pulse racing. “Marc, this is—shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

Marc hums. “I’m assuming you thought of someone.”

Sid laughs, fully hysterical now. “Marc, I don’t—I can’t—fuck. Fuck,” he says again, emphatic.

“It can’t be that bad,” Marc assures him, but he just doesn’t know. It can be that bad. “Is it another player? Is he already bonded?” He pauses. “It’s not Ovechkin, is it? Or Giroux?”

Sid chokes. He doesn’t know if that would be better or worse. At least they’re closer to his age. At least they probably wouldn’t notice Sid’s feelings because they’re caught up in their own bonds.

“It’s not one of your rookies or something, is it? Or like McDavid?”

Sid shudders. That would probably be worse.

“Tell me, Sid,” Marc whines. “I want to know.”

Tipping his head back, Sid stares at the ceiling, eyes unseeing. “Konecny,” he says, feeling the weight of it on his tongue. The sure knowledge of it settling in his chest. “Travis Konecny from the Flyers.”

Silence meets his admission, and Sid cringes internally. Maybe it actually is worse. At least McDavid would make more sense, would be a more…reasonable or respectable choice. Sid feels sick at the thought.

“Konecny,” Marc repeats, stunned. “Konecny from the Flyers. Mouthy, little, fight-picking Travis Konecny from the goddamn Philadelphia Flyers.” He lets out a laugh, shocked and disbelieving. “Still practically a rookie, can’t ever shut up on or off the ice, beloved pest of your least favorite city Travis Konecny.” He whistles lowly. “Damn, Sid. Damn. I would never have guessed that. Never. Holy shit, man, are you for real? Konecny?”

Sid flushes. “I didn’t mean to.”

Marc laughs again, sounding delighted. “Of course not. That just makes this even better. You, the Captain of the Pittsburgh Penguins, have a prebond with the Flyers’ rookie. Oh my god, Sid, you’re a modern day Romeo and Juliet.”

Grimacing, Sid says, “No, I’m not. I’m not about to kill myself over this.”

Marc hums. “Good to know.” He pauses. “But what are you going to do. I mean, I know you spend as little time around the Flyers as possible, so if you’ve already got a prebond with this kid, that means you’re like pretty fucking compatible. Like true mates compatible.”

Sid balks. “No way. No fucking way.”

“You sure? You’ve only ever run into the kid at games—unless you’re hiding something from me—so you see each other four times a season if you’re both healthy, and somehow, despite the limited exposure, you’ve managed to develop a prebond with him. That’s pretty impressive, Sid. Honestly, it’s kind of cool.”

Sid would like to disagree. Nothing about this (the prebond, the way just thinking about Konecny makes something in Sid’s stomach flutter, the memory of their last run in) is cool.

“So what are you going to do?” Marc asks. “He’s not bonded, or at least I don’t think he is. Are you going to talk to him?”

Their last talk, if it can be called that, went poorly. If Sid even wanted to reach out and explore whatever the hell this is, Konecny probably wouldn’t be interested. “I’ll probably just keep meeting with alphas,” Sid decides. “Prebonds aren’t permanent. It’ll fade eventually, and things can go back to normal. I can find another alpha.”

Marc makes a displeased sound. “You don’t even want to try?” he asks. “Not even once?”

“Can you imagine the shit show that would follow if I bonded with him?” Sid asks. “It would be awful, Marc. All the shit I’ve gotten before but a hundred times worse. I’m already the virgin of the league, but I’d rather be that than Konecny’s bitch.”

“That’s not how bonds work,” Marc says, indignant. “Anyone who considers a bonded omega their alpha’s bitch is old-fashioned and bigoted.”

Sid scrubs a hand over his face. “And there are lots of old-fashioned, bigoted fans out there, even some players. Probably some on the Flyers.”

“If you’re mated, Konecny wouldn’t let the Flyers talk like that about you,” Marc says, sounding certain. “He may be obnoxious, but he seems like a decent guy. He wouldn’t ever treat you like you were beneath him.”

Sid knows that. He knows it. Konecny hadn’t pushed during playoffs. He hadn’t demanded anything from Sid. Hell, he had found him in preheat last year and hadn’t tried anything.

“You should give it a shot,” Marc says. “I know there are a lot of things that would make it hard. I know some people would probably react poorly if you bonded, but Sid, he could be your true mate. He could be the right alpha for you.”

Sid sighs and cards a hand through his hair, shaking his head. “Marc, I…” He knuckles at his eyes. “I don’t…” He can’t say he doesn’t want it. That would be a bald-faced lie. He wants it, or at least his body wants it. But that doesn’t mean he should do anything about it. “I don’t know,” he finally settles on because that’s the closest to the truth he can get right now, and even that feels like a lot to admit.

“That’s okay,” Marc says gently. “You don’t need to know, but you should think about it. That level of compatibility, Sid, it doesn’t happen very often.”

Sid slumps on an elbow and frowns. “I know.”

“Hey, les filles,” Marc shouts, “faites attention.”

“I should let you go,” Sid says.

“No, it’s alright. They’re just running where they shouldn’t.”

Sid shakes his head. “No, you should spend time with your family. You should be with them.”

Marc sighs, knowing Sid won’t be dissuaded. “Okay, but please think about it, Sid. Please.”

“I will,” Sid promises, though the thought makes his stomach flip.

“Okay. Tell me how things go.”

“I will. Bye.”

“Bye.”

The call disconnects, and Sid sets his phone on the counter, overwhelmed by the conversation, the realization, and the explanation for his failed meetings.

“Fuck,” he says to himself.

\----

Later that night, his phone pings.

From Marc-André Fleury (9:58PM)  
(267) 516-8711  
I don’t know if you already have his number, but if you don’t, here it is

To Marc-André Fleury (10:00PM)  
How did you get this?

From Marc-André Fleury (10:01PM)  
I have my ways 😈  
Call him okay?  
I think it could work out

Sid sighs and flicks out of his messages, setting his alarm and dropping his phone on the night stand. He pulls the covers up to his chin and tries not to think about how empty his bed feels.

\----

He sits on the number for three days.

He works out; he visits his parents and hangs out with Nate; and he goes to another meeting organized by the clinic and fails spectacularly.

Now that he knows what he wants, now that he knows the scent his body is instinctually reaching out for, he can’t help but realize that this alpha—just like all the others—will never be what he wants. From first sight, first scent, he knows this alpha isn’t right, could never be right.

He sits on the number for another three days, psyching himself up.

He can do this. He can do this. He’s been through worse; he’s dealt with harder things. The concussion, the broken jaw, the years of no Cup, the weight of a franchise on his shoulders, the years of loneliness, the bone-deep ache when he’s around little kids or happily-bonded mates.

This shouldn’t be so hard. It shouldn’t.

Sitting on the couch, he stares at Marc’s text and the string of numbers that would mean nothing to someone else but mean everything to him. What if Konecny hangs up on him? What if he wants nothing to do with Sid after he so thoroughly dismissed him? What if they’re not actually compatible and Sid’s body just latched on to the closest unbonded alpha that wasn’t a complete dick?

Before he can go down the rabbit hole for the hundredth time, he taps the number and hits call. It rings shrilly, and he holds it up to his ear, knee bouncing.

It rings again and again.

Shit, what if Konecny doesn’t pick up? Sid’s an unknown number. Most people, especially professional athletes, don’t answer unknown numbers. Fuck, maybe he should text him. But then he could leave Sid on read. He could open the message and never answer, and that would be so much worse. Fuck, what if—

“Hello?” a voice answers, and Sid jumps at the sound. That’s him. That’s him. That’s him. “Hello?”

If he had any doubts about compatibility, they are thoroughly crushed by the way his pulse spikes and heat spreads through his body at the sound of Konecny’s voice.

“Fucking solicitors,” Konecny mutters, sounding distant.

“Wait!” Sid shouts, voice too loud in his quiet house. “Konecny, wait!”

There is silence on the other end of the line, but the call doesn’t disconnect.

Sid draws himself up. “Konecny, hey, it’s Sidney. Crosby,” he tacks on. “It’s Sidney Crosby.”

It’s quiet, but Sid thinks he can hear a muffled curse.

“Hey, um, is now an okay time to talk?” Maybe Konecny is with his family or out with friends. Fuck, maybe he’s on a date. Shit.

There’s another curse, slightly more distinct, and it makes Sid wince.

He rubs his palm over his thigh, drying it. “If not, we can talk later. Or, I guess, we don’t have to talk at all. You might not want to talk, but—”

“Do you want to talk?” Konecny asks, baffled and a little angry, justifiably angry.

Sid swallows. “I do,” he says. “If that’s okay with you.”

Konecny lets out a sharp breath, too harsh to be a laugh. “You really want to talk?”

Sid nods. “I really want to talk.”

A pause, then, “Okay.”

Sid waits for him to continue and begins to feel nervous when he stays quiet. Konecny is a talker. No one can get him to shut up.

“Look,” Konecny says, “I’m going to let you take the lead on this because it didn’t go so well when I tried last time or any of the times before that. You want to talk? You should start.”

Leg bouncing, Sid nods. That’s fair. That’s reasonable. “Okay,” he says. “I…well…” He scrubs a hand over the patchy scruff on his chin. “I think we have a prebond.”

Konecny stays silent.

“I think we have a prebond, and I think I’ve gone into heat a couple of times because of it and because of you.” He flushes at the admission. Obviously, Konecny has to know that Sid (or his body) is interested in him, but going into heat over someone is a little more than commonplace interest.

“I guessed,” Konecny finally says. “Wasn’t sure though. What do you want to do about it? Are you calling to figure out a way to break it?”

Just the mention of breaking it makes Sid feel sick. “No,” he says, sounding surer than he thought he was. “No, I don’t want to break it.”

He can practically feel the surprise on Konecny’s end.

“I don’t want to break it,” he repeats, the decision finalizing in his mind. Will it be a mess once (once, not if) this gets out? Yes. Will there be a media firestorm? Absolutely. Will fans and players and commentators say some nasty things? No doubt. Is that worth losing a chance at this? No, Sid thinks. No, it isn’t. He’s given up enough, and he has the Cups to show for it. He’s not adding this to the list of things sacrificed on the alter to the hockey gods.

“Then what do you want?” Konecny asks, gentle and unassuming. So much nicer than he is on the ice. Just as nice as Sid knew he was.

Sid rolls his bottom lip between his teeth. “I want to try this,” he says. “I want to meet and see if this could work.”

“Are you sure? I mean, I get why you wouldn’t. I get why you didn’t when I tried to talk to you before.”

“I’m sure,” Sid says, and he feels it, the truth of the words settling in his chest and filling the empty places just a little.

Konecny stays quiet for a minute. “If you’re sure,” he says.

“I am.”

“So what do you want to do? Do you want to meet soon?”

In for a penny, in for a pound, right? “As soon as possible,” he says.

The silence is stunned.

“If that’s okay with you.”

“Yeah,” Konecny says. “Shit, yeah, definitely. I’m good with that.”

Relief flooding through him, Sid nods. “Good.” He smiles. “Good, would…would you want to come up here for a few days? We could see how things go and figure out where we want to go from there.”

“I could do that. Is tomorrow too soon?”

Shit.

Holy shit.

“No, tomorrow’s good. Tomorrow’s great.”

\----

The next day, Sid feels on edge, thoughts humming and skin buzzing. He makes it through his workout and bids Andy goodbye with a distracted wave and a promise to see him tomorrow.

He hops in the shower and scrubs himself until his skin is pink and smooth. Then he towels himself dry and tries to find something to wear that isn’t too casual but not too formal either. He ends up in a polo and a pair of golf shorts that Nate promised made his butt look good.

Dressing to accentuate his figure feels odd. He’s never done it before. He’s never wanted to do it before. Clothing was bought for comfort and fit, nothing else. But he wants to do it now. He has a good ass. Everyone chirps him for it, but Marc had promised that’s just because they were jealous. He hopes Travis (“Dude, please quit calling me Konecny when I’m buying a ticket to come see you and test our prebond.”) is an ass guy. Well, if he’s interested in Sid, he’s probably an ass guy, right?

He checks his phone again, has been obsessively checking it for the last hour since he received a text from Travis saying he had landed, and finds a second text.

From Travis (2:13PM)  
GPS says 5 minutes

He shoves his phone back in his pocket and looks himself over. His butt does look good in these shorts.

When Travis buzzes at the first gate, he lets him through, then opens the one for his driveway so everything is ready.

He fiddles with his hair for a moment. It’s gotten a little long, beginning to curl at the end, but it doesn’t look bad.

The sound of a car pulling into the drive grabs his attention, and he hits the button to shut the gate before he can forget.

He takes a lap around the house, so he doesn’t look like a weirdo ready to open the door as soon as Travis knocks, but he ends up hovering near the door anyways and has to count to ten before he steps forward to open it.

As the door swings open, a wave of sun-blood-rain spills into the house, filling his nose and fogging his brain. Travis looks good. He looks really fucking good. Bulked up from a summer of training, tanned from hours under the sun. Sid wants to climb him. He wants to get on his knees and present. He only has a moment to contemplate the meaning of that, the implication, when he feels the wave of heat roll through him.

“Hey,” Travis greets. “You look—” the words die on his tongue, and Sid knows he can smell it on him.

Travis’ nostrils flare, and he wets his lips.

The first hints of slick leak out of Sid, and he bites down on a plaintive whine.

“Are you in heat?” Travis asks, voice rough. “Are you okay?”

It pools in Sid’s belly, makes his dick swell, and leaves him wet and empty. He nods.

Travis swallows, and his gaze feels like a tangible thing as it slides down Sid’s body and back up. “Do you want my help?”

Sid does. He really does. He shakes his head. “Not yet,” he tells him. “I don’t—we don’t—”

Travis nods. “Yeah, okay. How long has it been? How long does it usually last?”

Sid wants to reach out and drag him inside. He wants to strip their clothes off and sit on Travis’ knot. He wants to feel him swell and lock inside of him, wants his teeth in his neck and his hands around his hips.

“Sid,” Travis says. “Sid, talk to me. When did it start?”

Fingers clenching around the doorknob, Sid forms the words with difficulty. “Just did.”

Travis’ eyes go wide, and his mouth falls open. “Shit, okay. Well that—yeah. How long should it last?”

“Just tonight probably. Hopefully. Not a real heat. Just pseudo.”

Looking him over, Travis nods. “Do you need help to your room? Can I get you anything?”

Sid shakes his head; the room tilts around him like he’s drunk. “Bad idea.”

“Right. Do you…would you want my shirt or something?” he offers, looking nervous. “I’ve heard that can help.”

Sid wants it just so he can watch Travis take it off. “Yeah. Yeah, then you should go. But just tonight.”

“I can get a hotel or something,” Travis says easily, reaching for the hem of his shirt.

“No!” Sid shouts, and Travis freezes. “No hotel. People might hear.”

Travis gives him a bemused look. “Do you have a spare room then? Or a guest house or something? I guess I could sleep in the car, but that would kind of suck.”

He is too nice, much too nice. Sid clenches his free hand into a fist to keep himself from reaching out. “You can stay at my parents’.”

Travis’ brow lifts in shock.

“They know you’re here.” He had told them after calling Travis yesterday. His dad had been surprised at first though not unaccepting, and his mom had been delighted, demanding that Sid bring Travis over so they could meet him. “They’ll understand.”

Wide-eyed, Travis nods. “Sure. Do they live close? How do I get there?”

He smells shocked. Surprised, but not in a bad. There is a pleased note to his scent that Sid really likes, a heavy undercurrent of contentment and desire that threatens to drag Sid under.

“Give me your phone,” he says, pulling his out. “We can switch. You can call them from mine. They’ll give you directions.”

Travis takes the phone with careful hands, avoiding Sid’s fingers, and hands over his own as quickly as possible. “Passcode’s 101416.”

“8787,” Sid replies, fingers curling around Travis’ phone like it’s something precious, a piece of him that he’s given Sid.

Travis snorts. “Could’ve guessed that.”

Sid shrugs. He’s a creature of habit, and he finds comfort in repetition.

“I’ll go then,” Travis says, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. It brings Sid’s attention to his arms: the corded muscle, the rippling tattoo, the golden skin. “Yeah, I should definitely go,” Travis says, voice lower, rougher.

“Your shirt,” Sid says, practically begs.

Gaze fixed on him, Travis grips the hem and pulls it over his head, knocking his hat off in the process, and Sid lets out a needy whimper. Travis tosses the shirt at him, and only years of training give him the coordination he needs to catch it.

The scent on the shirt is strong and heady, and it’s still warm from Travis’ skin. Sid resists the urge to bury his face in it.

“I’ll go,” Travis says, righting his hat. “I’ll call your parents.”

Sid nods, though he wants to protest.

“See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

\----

The next morning, his sheets are filthy, covered in sweat, slick, and come, and Travis’ shirt is worse. His memories of the previous night are in pieces, but he remembers enough to make him flush. Rolling out of bed, he gathers the sheets, shoves them in the wash, and sets the machine to heavy duty. In his room, he throws the windows open and turns the fan on to remove the thick smell of omega heat.

Glancing at the clock, he hops in the shower and scrubs until he’s clean, the last traces of dried slick and come slipping down the drain and out of sight. He pulls on something comfortable afterwards and grabs Travis’ phone off the nightstand.

There are multiple unread messages, but Sid ignores them. It’s not his business who Travis texts. When he sees his own name, he pauses, then opens the thread.

From Sid (3:01PM)  
Made it to your parents

From Sid (3:44PM)  
Your mom is really nice

From Sid (5:12PM)  
Your dad is kind of scary, but I think we’re friends now

From Sid (6:36PM)  
I know you probably can’t answer right now, but I just wanted to check in  
Hope everything’s okay

From Sid (7:04PM)  
Your sister just gave me the shovel talk  
She could put Malkin to shame in the intimidation department

From Sid (8:12PM)  
Your old room is adorable  
Little Sidney was precious

From Sid (9:53PM)  
Text me when you’re up tomorrow  
I just want to know everything’s okay

The string of texts makes warmth settle in Sid’s gut, and he grabs his keys, heading for the door.

To Sid (9:22AM)  
Just woke up.  
I’m good.  
On my way now.

\----

The drive is quick, easy without the traffic that clogs Pittsburgh.

He pulls into his parents’ drive, takes the keys out of the ignition, and heads for the door, waving to Mr. Smithson when he calls out from his porch. Inside, he can hear the TV on in the family room, commentators jabbering, and smell fresh pancakes, golden brown and heavenly.

“Oh see,” he hears his mom say. “You tried to tell me you weren’t any good at this. Those look perfect.”

Someone laughs. “I don’t know, Mrs. Crosby. That one looks a little lumpy, and that one isn’t even a circle.”

“I told you to just call me Trina,” she chides. “No need for formality here.”

Sid makes his way through the house and stops in the entry to the kitchen, watching Travis and his mom cook breakfast. His dad is at the table, neck craned to watch the TV, and Taylor is in the family room, sprawled on the couch as she watches whatever talk show TSN is playing.

“Morning,” he calls out, and they all turn to him.

“Sid,” Trina greets with a smile. “How are you feeling?”

Sid nods, “Good,” because he doesn’t want to go into any more detail about his heat with his parents, sister, and the person who triggered it all in the same space.

“Hungry?”

Nodding, Sid takes a seat next to his dad who grips his shoulder and gives him a welcoming shake.

“Breakfast is almost ready thanks to my sous-chef,” Trina says, and Travis shakes his head.

“I just follow orders.”

She beams at him and turns back to the griddle, telling Travis it’s probably time to take this batch off. With a quick glance at Sid, he complies, piling the pancakes up before moving them onto a plate with the others.

“He’s a good kid,” Troy leans in to tell him while Trina and Travis pour more batter onto the griddle. “Real polite and helps out without being asked.”

“He also isn’t a dick about being an alpha,” Taylor adds, dropping into the seat beside Sid. “It’s impressive for an NHLer. I was worried he’d try and posture or establish his territory, but he was chill, so nice choice.”

Sid flushes and leans his arms on the table. “I haven’t chosen yet,” he mutters. “He’s here, so we can figure things out.”

Rolling her eyes, Taylor pats his arm. “Sure, Sid, whatever you say.”

He shoots her a glare that she ignores, and Troy asks them about the Caps’ chances of repeating, a clear redirect that Sid takes full advantage of, rambling about their trades, possible Cup hangovers, and Ovechkin’s seemingly-nonexistent ceiling until Travis and Trina bring the pancakes and eggs to the table, and they eat.

Once the plates have been cleared, Sid makes noise about going home for his workout, telling Travis he’s welcome to join. Unless he has something of his own, then he’s welcome to Sid’s gym.

“A workout with the famous Andy O’Brein?” Travis asks, grin teasing. “How could I pass up on that?”

Trina is absolutely charmed, and Taylor keeps shooting Sid looks that let him know how much crap she wants to give him for finding an alpha that is not only a Philadelphia Flyer but also younger than her by a good year. Troy just seems genuinely pleased that Sid found someone who enjoys fishing as much as he does, and they make it out of the house with a promise to hit the lake tomorrow and only one slightly pointed joke about Travis’ age.

“They’re cool,” Travis says on the way to their cars. “Good people.”

Sid nods and climbs into his Tahoe, waiting for Travis to hop in his rental before pulling onto the street.

\----

Andy doesn’t even bat an eyelash when he comes over, just gives Travis a quick onceover, asks a couple questions, and folds him into Sid’s regular workout.

“Will you be here long?” he asks once they’ve finished, tone neutral.

Travis looks to Sid, hands braced on his hips as he catches his breath. Sid is understandably distracted for a moment.

“Sid,” Andy says, amused, and Sid snaps his mouth shut.

He turns to Andy and flushes at the knowing look in his eye. “Uh, we were, well,” he flounders. Travis has a return ticket in four days, but Sid wouldn’t mind if he pushed it back. He wouldn’t mind if he stayed the rest of the summer.

But he’s getting ahead of himself. Way ahead of himself.

He looks at Travis who only jerks his chin at him, letting Sid know it’s his choice, and a pleased warmth curls in his stomach at the easy deferral.

“Plan on it,” he tells Andy, who only nods and gives them both a handshake before heading out.

Travis lifts the hem of his shirt to wipe his face, and Sid stares at the toned expanse of his stomach. “Should I push my ticket back?”

“Hmm?”

Travis huffs out a laugh and lets his shirt fall, scent turning pleased and heady. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Mourning the lost view, Sid looks up, trying to remember what Travis had asked. He can’t.

But his eyes are a nice green with some gold and brown thrown in, and his smile’s a little crooked, charming as Trina had called it.

“Can I kiss you?” Travis asks.

Sid’s brain temporarily malfunctions.

When he doesn’t respond, Travis coughs awkwardly and shakes his head. “Nevermind,” he says, gruff. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Yes,” Sid says, rapidly coming back online. “Yeah, you can. We should…yeah.”

Travis looks at him, smelling hesitant. “Are you sure? We don’t have to if you don’t want to. I just, you look,” he waves a hand, “and the way you smell. I just thought, you know, maybe we could—”

Sid closes the distance between them in two quick steps and settles a hand on Travis’ waist. They’re nearly the same height. Sid might have an inch or two on him, but it’s not significant. “We definitely could,” he says, and Travis’ scent mellows out, hesitance falling away and anticipation bleeding in.

Slowly, Sid leans forward until their lips brush. It’s warm and close-mouthed, a gentle touch that fills Sid with warmth.

He pulls back after a beat and waits for Travis to return his gaze. “Good?” he asks, nervous. He hasn’t kissed many people in his life and no one he wanted to kiss this badly.

“The best,” Travis replies, features serious.

Contentment unfurls in his belly. “Oh.”

“Would you mind if I did it again?”

Sid shakes his head.

Lips quirking, Travis lifts a hand to cradle Sid’s jaw, tilts his head, and tips forward for another kiss. This one is firmer, surer. His lips are a little dry, but his tongue is wet when it slides over Sid’s lower lip. The contact startles him, but when Travis moves to pull away, Sid gets a hand in his hair and pulls him close, mouth opening clumsily to let him in.

Sid isn’t sure how long they stand there for, making out like a couple of freshly-presented teenagers, but by the time they separate, Sid’s mouth feels puffy and abused, and his shorts are wet with more than just sweat.

“Lunch?” he asks, heart hammering and breaths still coming short.

Travis nods, reaching down to adjust himself in his shorts as subtly as possible.

Sid can smell him though; he can smell himself. Nothing about this is subtle.

“We can go to the rink this afternoon. I have private ice time, and I trust anyone who might be around to not say anything.”

Travis grins crookedly and catches Sid’s hand in his, tangling their fingers together. “I knew it was a good idea to bring my gear.”

Sid grins back, cheeks flushing, and leads them back up to the house.

\----

The next few days pass much the same. They work out in the morning and hit the rink in the afternoon. Some time is spent on the lake, where Travis proves to be a better fisher than all of them and earns a back slap and a ‘good job, son’ from known hard-ass Troy Crosby; other time is spent spread out on the couch, Netflix playing in the background as Sid acquaints himself with Travis’ mouth, his hands, his body. They go to his parents’ for dinner a couple times, and Nate comes to his place a few times, too. (“You know, I didn’t really believe you when you first told me,” he says, expression thoughtful. “But I get it now. You and him. It’s good. It works.”)

It does work. It is good.

\----

A few days later, they’re out on the back deck, tired from a hard workout and skate but not ready to head inside and get dinner started.

The sun beats down on them, hot and golden, but a breeze off the lake keeps them cool enough that Sid can drape himself over Travis’ chest and press his nose to his neck, drawing in great lungfuls of his scent until he’s dizzy with it. Travis has an arm around his waist as he noses at Sid’s hair, dropping random kisses to the curls, and Sid doesn’t think he’s ever been this happy.

Grinning, he props his chin up on a fist and looks at Travis until his gaze drifts away from the clouds above them and locks on Sid. “What are you thinking about?” he asks.

Travis’ hand strokes over his back. “Honest answer?”

“Please.”

Nodding, Travis settles his hand in the small of Sid’s back. “I’m thinking this is good,” he says. “You and me, it’s good.”

Sid nods his agreement. It is good. Even better than he expected, better than he ever hoped for in the rare moments of weakness when he let himself think about his future outside of hockey.

“I feel like we’re moving towards a bond and everything that comes with it,” Travis continues, “and I know you’ve been going into heat a lot more recently, and I was just thinking that it would be nice if we had sex before a heat.”

Curious, Sid lifts a brow.

“Heats are like ruts,” Travis goes on. “And I’ve only gone into rut twice, but I felt pretty out of it, pretty out of control both times, and I think heat is the same way, and I…” He drums his fingers on Sid’s skin. “I don’t want that to be our first time together, you know? I mean, I want to spend a heat with you. I want to spend all your heats with you, if you’ll let me, but I don’t want that to be the first time.”

He falls silent then but watches Sid, gaze unwavering as it tracks over his features.

The confession leaves Sid speechless, stunned but not in a bad way. He thought he knew what alphas wanted (a quiet, submissive omega) and what they liked (a desperate, wet omega in heat), but Travis seems to enjoy defying all of his expectations, brushing them aside with a nonchalance that leaves Sid shocked, pleased, and just a little aroused. Maybe more than a little.

When Sid thinks about it, he’s right. Things are going well between them. The prebond seems to only have grown stronger, and with every passing day, Sid sees less and less reason to not move from prebond to full bond. The hungry media, the shit-talking players, and the nasty fans don’t seem all that important when it’s just Sid and Travis, curled under a blanket on the couch or leaning into one another on the boat.

“Okay,” he decides, sitting up. “Let’s do it.”

Travis scrambles up after him. “What? Now? Here?”

Sid shakes his head and stands. “No, inside.”

Brow furrowed, Travis rises. “Are you sure? I wasn’t saying that because I want to have sex now. Well, actually, I wouldn’t mind having sex now, but only if you want to. I’m not trying to put pressure on you or anything. We can keep taking things slow. This is good. This is great. We don’t—”

Sid surges forward and presses their mouths together, swallowing the rest of Travis’ words and resting his hands on his hips. Travis takes to the interruption well enough, looping his arms around Sid’s waist to tug him closer.

Grinning into the kiss, Sid walks back toward the house, fingers hooked in the waistband of Travis’ shorts, and they stumble through the doorway. Inside, the air feels shockingly cool after the heat of the sun, so Sid plasters himself to Travis’ front, soaking in his warmth and shivering at the contrast.

Travis nips at his mouth then trails kisses down his neck, mouth hot and suction exquisite. He tightens his arms around Sid and bodily forces him to take another step further into the house. The display of strength, made more impressive by the extra pounds Sid has on him, leaves him flushed and wanting, fingers catching on Travis’ bare skin as he tries to eliminate the space between them.

Teeth sharp, Travis bites at his shoulder, the hollow of his throat, the vulnerable swath of skin where a bonding bite would go, and Sid lets out a shaky breath. They fumble their way through the living room and into Sid’s bedroom.

When Travis pulls back, Sid can’t contain the displeased whine that spills from his lips. “Hey,” Travis soothes, “it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.”

He says that, but he keeps Sid at arm’s length. Sid doesn’t like it.

“Hold on,” Travis pleads when Sid reaches for the ties of his shorts. “Just a second.”

Even though he feels like a child, Sid curls his lower lip and pouts at Travis. It has the desired effect (Travis’ grip going lax and his eye growing foggy), and Sid happily undoes the strings, fingers eager. He loosens the waistband and tries to shove the shorts over Travis’ hips.

“Sid,” Travis squawks. “Sid, hang on.”

He doesn’t want to hang on. He’s hung on since he was fifteen, going through his first heat and swearing he wouldn’t let it stop him from playing in the NHL. He’s done hanging on.

Travis grabs his wrists in a firm grip, and Sid gives him a dirty look. “Jesus fuck,” Travis groans. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Sid glares harder, bottom lip curling out, and thinks he probably looks like a fool. He feels like one.

“God, that’s not fair,” Travis says, fingers flexing around Sid’s wrists.

Maybe he doesn’t look as foolish as he thought.

Travis lifts his hands, bends down, and presses a chaste kiss to Sid’s knuckles, lips gentle. He looks up at Sid, pupils blown and cheeks flushed, and heat moves beneath Sid’s skin, sets his nerves on fire, and burns him up.

“How do you want to do this?” Travis asks. “I want to make this good for you.”

A quiet pleasure fills Sid, and he sways forward for a kiss, chest too small for everything he asks it to contain. Travis licks over the seam of his lips before pulling back.

“Tell me,” he says. The words are an order, but the tone makes it a request, something he would like but won’t demand if Sid doesn’t want to share.

Looking around the room, Sid says, “I want to be on top.”

Travis says nothing, waiting.

“I want to be in control of the pace. I want to be able to stop if…if I don’t like it. I want to decide how fast or slow or hard we go.”

When he’s finished, he turns back to Travis, chin up and shoulders back, defiant.

Travis just nods. “Yeah,” he says, voice dropping. “Yeah, that sounds good. I’m good with that. So good.”

Surprise washes through Sid at the easy acceptance, the eagerness he can see on Travis’ face. “Yeah?”

“Hell yeah,” Travis reassures. “Hell fucking yeah, Sid.” He uses his grip on Sid’s hands to pull him closer. “I bet you’d look so good sitting on my dick, bet you could ride me all night.”

A flush of embarrassed arousal sweeps through Sid, and he catches Travis’ mouth in a kiss before he can say anything more. They move together, lips locked and tongues brushing, and Sid brings his hands back to Travis’ waistband. He fusses with the fabric before pushing it down, feeling it slide down Travis’ thighs and fall to the floor.

Travis’ dick bumps against his stomach, and Sid breaks the kiss, gasping, head tipping forward to look at the swollen length and wet head. It’s thick but not too long, veins standing out and flesh blood-red. Sid wants to wrap a fist around it, gather the precome at the tip, and slide his hand up and down, up and down until Travis comes between them.

When he realizes there’s nothing stopping him, he lifts a tentative hand and curls his fingers into a loose fist around the hot length. Travis moans, and his hips snap forward.

“Fuck, Sid.”

Sid tightens his grip and draws his hand up, then down. The flesh twitches in his hand, and a dribble of precome oozes out the slit, pearly white. Sid strokes his thumb over the heated length and swipes at the precome. It’s sticky and warm.

Curious, he lets Travis go and brings his hand to his mouth, tongue flicking out to taste. Travis groans, eyes fixed on Sid’s mouth. Pushing aside the embarrassment, Sid sucks his thumb into his mouth, lets his eyes flutter shut, and hums appreciatively. Travis swears.

When his thumb is clean, Sid opens his eyes and flushes at the look on Travis’ face, hungry and desperate, eyes dark and cheeks red.

“Sid,” Travis says, rough and a little wild.

Sid grins, a possessive satisfaction settling in his gut. He did this to Travis. With a few kisses, a simple touch, and a finger on his tongue. “Lay on the bed,” he says.

Nodding, Travis steps out of his shorts, crawls onto the bed, and settles on his back, eyes fixed on Sid. He’s all golden skin and compact muscle, mouth wet and open, chest rising and falling like he just got off a hard shift. Sid walks to the edge of the bed and reaches for his own shorts, watching as Travis tracks the movement, throat working.

The weight of his gaze gives Sid the confidence to undo the ties and slide the shorts off.

Travis sucks in a sharp breath when they fall to the floor, and Sid bites down on a smile, kneeling on the bed before swinging a leg over Travis’ hips to straddle him.

“Shit,” Travis hisses when Sid settles on him. “Shit, you’re so hot.”

Flush with pleasure, Sid bends down and presses their mouths together, opening to Travis’ tongue with a sigh. As they kiss, he slowly rocks against him, groaning at the friction between their stomachs, and Travis’ hands trail up and down his back. When his fingers tease at Sid’s entrance, he pushes into the touch.

“Can I?” Travis asks.

Sid nods and presses his head to the crook of Travis’ neck when the tip of a finger slides in. It goes in easy, slick easing the way, and Travis draws it in and out a couple times before adding a second. There’s a light stretch this time, but it feels good.

He works them in and out, twisting and turning, scissoring and curling until he finds the spot that makes Sid cry out and tremble, color bursting behind his eyelids. One hand pressed to the small of Sid’s back, Travis uses the other to turn him into a puddle of breathless pleasure.

He eases a third finger in, and Sid rocks into the feeling, trembling and sighing into the warm skin of Travis’ throat. He smells so good. His scent is sharper here, fuller, with an edge to it that makes Sid squirm and press closer.

“Should I use a fourth?” Travis asks, fingers buried in Sid’s ass, massaging at his prostate.

Sid shakes his head and pushes himself up on weak arms. “No, that should be enough. I’m going to—” He waves a hand and leans over, pulls his nightstand open and fishes out the box of condoms he bought just in case. He rips it open, grabs one, and drops the rest back in the drawer, messy and careless.

Travis watches him tear the package open and sucks in a harsh breath when Sid carefully rolls the condom on.

“Good?” Sid asks.

Travis wets his lips and swallows. “Yeah.”

Nodding, Sid rises up on his knees, shuffles forward, and tests the angle. Travis moans when his dick presses against the slick skin of Sid’s ass. Lifting himself up, Sid gets a hand around Travis and slowly sits down, body stretching around Travis’ swollen dick.

“Oh god,” Travis groans, fitting his hands around Sid’s hips. “Oh shit.”

Sid nods in agreement. It’s a lot. It’s heat and slick and pressure. It’s Travis hands, his body, his length splitting Sid open.

When Sid feels like he can breathe without falling apart, he pushes himself up and back down, feels Travis’ hands stroke over his sides, and lets a pleased smile steal over his face. He sets a steady pace, pleasure rolling through him and Travis groaning below him, mouth running because, even in this, he’s a talker.

“Yeah, babe, yeah,” he says. “You look so good. Look so damn good on my dick. Feel good, too. Shit. You’re so tight and wet, Sid.”

Sid rises and falls, breath catching in his chest, and Travis babbles beneath him.

His skin feels too tight; his mind is foggy. He can’t think beyond this bed, this moment. The stream of expletives and praise pouring out of Travis, the fierce grip of his hands on Sid’s skin like he wants—needs—to keep him close, the hot press of his dick, perfect and inescapable.

“Shit, Sid,” Travis pants. “Shit, my knot,” he gasps, fingers tightening around Sid’s hips, pulling him close before pushing him away.

Sid sinks low and swivels his hips, moaning at the feel of Travis’ swollen knot. Oh. Oh, that’s good. Unexpected, but so good. “Yeah,” he gasps, suddenly desperate for it. “Yeah, I want it.”

Travis groans beneath him. “Are you sure? We didn’t—” He cuts off when Sid lifts up and drops back down, stretching around his growing knot. “Fuck. I didn’t know this would happen. We didn’t talk about it. You don’t have to.”

Sid rocks his hips slowly and tosses his head back when he finds that perfect spot inside him. “I want it. Come on, I want it.”

Travis grips his hips. “Are you sure?” he asks, choking the words out around a moan when Sid circles his hips a couple times.

“Definitely.”

Thighs burning, Sid presses up and back down, shivering when the knot pops in. It’s almost too big now, almost too much. They’ll be tied soon, no going back. Sid lifts himself again and pauses when only the tip still rests inside him. Travis bites out a curse, wild-eyed, and Sid slides back down, whimpering when the knot pushes in, swells up, and locks them together. Travis groans beneath him, legs drawn up behind Sid’s back and chest flushed and sweaty.

“Fuck, that’s good,” Travis swears. “Fuck, Sid, babe, that’s so good.”

Sid grinds down, and an electric shock jumps up his spine, pleasure white-hot as he approaches orgasm.

Travis’ thumbs stroke over his hip bones. “Shit, I’m stuck now, babe. You got me locked in.”

Biting his lip, Sid nods and starts up a steady grind, finding the spot that lights him up inside and working it until he can hardly breathe.

“You about to come?” Travis asks, eager and excited. “Fuck, you are, aren’t you? You gonna come on me, babe? You already got my dick and thighs all covered in slick, and now you want to get your omega come all over my chest?”

The thought of Travis covered in his come makes Sid shudder and clench around him.

“Yeah, baby,” Travis says, filthy as he wraps a hand around Sid. “You want that, don’t you? Good, because I want it, too. I’ve wanted it for ages. Shit, Sid, do you have any idea how good you smell? And the way you look?”

Shaking his head, Sid pushes into Travis’ hand.

“Never smelt anything like you before,” Travis tells him, smearing his thumb over the head of Sid’s dick. “It’s like a fresh sheet of ice, like the lake on a hot day. God, it’s the best thing I’ve ever smelt. You’re the best thing I’ve ever smelt.”

Sid lets out a small cry and bucks into Travis’ hand, leaning forward to brace his hands on the bed as he circles his hips, pulling Travis closer to the edge.

“And your body,” Travis groans. “Fuck, Sid, no one has a better body than you. Thickest thighs I’ve ever seen,” he says, letting Sid go to rub his hands up said thighs, “and nice, wide hips,” he continues, squeezing over the bone, “and your ass. God, I know people give you shit about it, but fuck them.” He reaches around and grabs two handfuls of Sid’s ass. “Best ass in the league. Best ass in the world.”

When his fingers slip over Sid’s skin and tease at the place they’re connected, Sid keens, strung-out and close to falling.

“God, I’m a lucky bastard,” Travis breathes, bringing one hand round to grip Sid, while the other rubs over the taught rim of his entrance. It’s a lot. “Don’t know how I got this. Don’t know how I got you.”

Sid feels trapped between the two sensations, Travis’ hand stroking over his leaking dick and his finger circling round and round and round, teasing. He wants to push into both. He wants to snap his hips into Travis’ grip but also wants to press back into his finger.

“You’re gorgeous,” Travis tells him. “Prettiest omega I’ve ever seen. With your doe eyes and fat lips. Bet you’re even prettier when you come.”

Sid whines, hurtling towards his orgasm.

“Yeah, I bet you are. Let me see it, Sid. I want to see it. Want to see you lose it, want you to come all over me, want to feel you get tight around my knot and squeeze the come right out of me.”

A shudder wracks Sid, and he works his hips against Travis, tightening around him just to hear him hiss and groan.

“Just like that, baby. God, you’re so good at this. Of course you’re good at this. You’re good at everything.”

Sid bites his bottom lip to keep a moan from spilling out, and Travis swats his ass, light and playful. Sid jumps.

“I want to hear you,” Travis says. “Want to hear how good this makes you feel. Come on, Sid. Let me hear you.”

Lip popping out from between his teeth, Sid moans loudly, louder than he’s ever let himself be.

Travis’ hips hitch beneath him. “Yeah, just like that,” he says, tone filthy. “You sound so good.”

Sid moans again, trembling from the words, the touch, the thick knot trapped inside him.

“That’s it,” Travis says, smirking, thumb working the head of Sid’s dick in tight, dizzying circles. “That’s it, babe. Don’t be afraid to get loud. I like that. I really like that.”

Sid nods and rocks against Travis, lips parting around sounds he didn’t even know he could make.

“Fucking perfect,” Travis says. “Now come, baby. Make a mess all over me. I want to see it. I want to taste it.”

The words make Sid’s spine arch and his head tip back as a breathless keen spills from his lips. He thought alphas didn’t like omega come. He had heard they thought it was gross, unnatural, and far inferior to the sweet slick omegas produced to ease the way for their knots.

“Yeah,” Travis drawls. “Yeah, come on, babe. Get it all over me. I want your scent on me.”

Sid’s rhythm stutters and falls apart as he comes, pleasure rolling through him in powerful waves as he bends over Travis.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Travis cries before falling silent, pulsing inside of Sid as he comes.

It’s overwhelming, earthshaking, and impossibly good.

Sid thinks this feeling might be better than winning the Cup.

“Shit,” Travis says beneath him, arms lifting to wrap around Sid. “Shit, I think I’m dead.”

A breathless laugh spills out of Sid, and he shivers when it rocks his frame, making Travis’ knot shift and press inside him.

Travis rubs a hand up and down his back in soothing strokes. “How’re you feeling?” he asks, turning to press a kiss to Sid’s sweaty curls.

“Good, really good.” He sits up enough to look Travis in the eye. “I’m glad we did this.”

Travis hums and brings his hands round to rest on Sid’s thighs, thumbs sweeping over the muscle. “Me too.”

Grinning, Sid dips down for a kiss, chest pressing against Travis, smearing his come between them. When he pulls back, Travis’ gaze drops to his chest, and his tongue swipes over his bottom lip. The look in his eyes makes goosebumps burst over Sid’s skin.

Eyes locked on Sid’s chest, Travis lifts a hand and skates a finger through the sticky mess, slipping over ribs and swirling around a nipple before pulling away. He looks at his finger curiously, then pops it in his mouth, sucking the come off with a filthy slurp. Sid’s hips twitch at the sight, and Travis stills, finger in his mouth as he looks up at Sid.

Sid knows omegas can come multiple times, but he’s never tried. It’s never interested him to try. But the way Travis looks right now, eyes dark and heavy, red lips wrapped around his finger, chest smeared with Sid’s come, makes him want to.

The finger slides out of Travis’ mouth. “Yeah?” he asks, husky and low.

Sid bites his lip and nods. “It won’t hurt you, right?”

Travis laughs, places his hands on Sid’s hips, and guides him in a slow circle. “Nah. I can’t come again like you, but I’ll stay locked in longer.”

Sid shudders, body clenching around the knot.

With a dirty grin, Travis helps him rock back and forth, hands hot on Sid’s skin. “You want that? You want to keep my knot locked up in that pretty little hole?”

Flushing, Sid whimpers.

Travis hums and grinds up into Sid, just on the right side of too much. “You do. Keep me in there until you come again, until you soak me and the sheets. Yeah, you want that.” His fingers dig into the meat of Sid’s ass as he works Sid inside, finding the angle that leaves him shaking and breathless. “I wonder how many times you can come. I wonder how long we can stay knotted for.”

Sid braces his hands on Travis’ chest, fingers slipping in the come and sweat, and gasps when Travis presses at the swollen skin of his rim with a couple fingers.

“Never knotted anyone before.”

The confession tears a desperate, possessive cry from Sid.

“Just you, baby,” Travis says. “Only you.”

Sid rocks into him, pleasant shocks spreading out from his core.

“Only omega for me.”

A finger teases at Sid’s rim, testing, pushing to see if he could take anymore, and a choked gasp spills out of Sid, his toes curling.

“Best omega.”

Sid doesn’t know if it’s the words, the curious finger, or the knot swelling inside him, but he comes again, tipping over the edge and flirting with overstimulation.

His body shakes as tremors roll through him, and his vision goes hazy, black spots blotting out the world. Travis grips him tight, fingers biting into Sid’s skin until he thinks there’ll be bruises in the morning.

In the aftermath, he feels floaty and undefined. Travis’ arms are back around him, cradling him close as Sid wades through the pleasure, and he melts into the touch, burying his face in Travis’ neck and sucking in deep breaths of his scent.

“So good, baby,” Travis murmurs. “You’re so good.” He cards a hand through Sid’s hair and showers him with kisses.

Sid shivers.

“Perfect,” Travis tells him. “God, Sid, you’re perfect.”

Sid makes a plaintive sound, settling further into Travis’ embrace. Travis’ arms tighten around him.

“I couldn’t have ever imagined an omega as good as you,” he continues, breathing the words against Sid’s ear. “Didn’t think someone like you could be real and not just a fantasy.”

Sid whines.

Travis presses a kiss to his temple. “You’re the best, Sid. Everything I could’ve wanted and more. You’ll make such a good mate, such a good parent someday.”

Sid tips his head up for a kiss and trembles when Travis slips his tongue out and over Sid’s bottom lip. It starts slow, a soft exchange of happiness and comfort, but it shifts to something deeper when Travis curls a hand around the back of Sid’s neck, careful and tentative then firm and steady when Sid doesn’t push him off. He tightens his grip, and Sid gasps, body lighting up from the top of his neck to the base of his spine.

“Is this okay?” Travis asks, loosening his grip.

Sid nods furiously. “Again. Please, again.”

Travis groans and follows direction, fingers gripping the nape of Sid’s neck until his spine turns to liquid and his body feels like one big, pulsing nerve.

“Think you could come again?” Travis asks, curious and eager.

Sid presses into the touch and arches his back. “Only one way to find out.”

Cursing, Travis keeps one hand on his neck, wraps the other around his hip, and grinds into him, too much and not enough and so perfect Sid already feels close to the edge.

\----

Life continues on after that but with the added bonus of Travis sleeping in his bed, Travis knotting him whenever he asks for it, Travis sliding down his body and blowing him before eating him out.

Sid sometimes struggles to keep his hands to himself. When they’re on the lake and Travis tugs off his t-shirt, Sid has to remind himself that he can’t trace his abs with his tongue because his dad is right there. When they’re at the rink and Travis manages to steal the puck off his stick, Sid has to talk himself down from shoving him to the ice and getting a hand in his pants because Nate probably wouldn’t appreciate that. When they’re curled under a blanket on the couch and Travis’s hand is making slow circles on his inner thigh, Sid has to tell himself that if they just wait another hour they can go home and do the million things floating through his head because his parents might be a bit upset if Sid tries to do any of those things on their couch.

Sid struggles so much that when he wakes up in heat the day Travis is supposed to fly home he isn’t actually surprised at all.

Travis is spread out beside him (he sleeps on his stomach) with one arm shoved under the pillow and the other flung haphazardly over Sid’s waist. His features are placid, completely relaxed in sleep, and he looks his age for once. Not that Sid has forgotten their age difference—Taylor reminds him at least once a day—but it doesn’t seem as obvious when Travis is awake. Sure, he has the energy and some of the dumb ideas of a twenty-one-year-old guy, but he’s actually pretty mature, used to responsibility and capable of taking care of himself and the people around him. He doesn’t seem young when he’s with Sid. Younger, sure, but not young.

He likes to have fun, likes to joke around and chirp, likes to run his mouth, but he can be serious, too. When Sid complains about the mistreatment of omegas in junior leagues, he nods and talks somberly about his best friend who dropped out of hockey after a prank went too far. When Sid mentions wanting kids and a family, he hums in agreement and says that he always hoped to live near a lake so he’d be able to take his kids out fishing. When Sid rants about dynamics and forced bondings, he curls an arm around his waist, presses a kiss to his shoulder, and says he hopes Sid never forgets this is his choice.

And Sid hasn’t forgotten. Despite the circumstances that brought them together, despite the months—years now—where Sid felt like his body was controlling him, he knows that this is his choice. Travis is his choice.

The knowledge sits heavy in his chest, not weighing him down but grounding him.

He chose to meet Travis. He chose to kiss him. He chose to sleep with him.

And now, he chooses to spend his heat with him.

If Travis wants to, of course.

Decided, Sid wiggles closer and hooks a leg over Travis’ thighs, nosing at the bronzed skin of his shoulder blade. Travis shifts beneath him and hums.

“Morning,” he greets, eyes still closed but a smile curling his lips.

“Morning,” Sid says, lips brushing skin.

Travis presses into the contact and yawns, lips smacking. “You smell good, babe,” he says, cracking an eye open. “You smell really good.”

Sid nods. “I’m in heat. I’m not sure when it started.”

Travis is fully awake now, eyes springing open as he rolls onto his back. “Shit,” he says. “Are you okay? Do I need to get anything? Should I leave earlier? I can just hang out at the airport.”

Shaking his head, Sid rises onto his hands and knees and crawls into Travis’ lap, pleased when he sits up and his scent sparks with desire. “Or you could stay here,” he says, looping his arms around Travis’ neck. “You could spend heat with me.”

Travis’ brows go up, and his hands settle on Sid’s hips. “You want me to?”

Sid nods and sucks a wet kiss into his neck.

His hands spasm on Sid’s skin. “Shit, yeah, okay.” He ducks down and captures Sid’s mouth in a fierce kiss, open and hungry. “I’ll get a new flight,” he says, fingers already sliding towards Sid’s soaking entrance. “I can stay here. I can stay for your heat.”

Sid’s answering grin is sharp and predatory. “Good,” he purrs. Then he climbs out of Travis’ lap, spreads his knees wide, and drops his chest. “Because I want you to mount me.”

The choked whimper Travis releases is almost as satisfying as the sharp burst of want that floods his scent.

\----

When he wakes up, Sid’s first thought is that they’re going to have to throw these sheets out, maybe the mattress, too. No amount of hot water or soap will be enough to remove the heavy stench of sweat, slick, and come. (Not that he hates the smell; he doesn’t. The scent of him and Travis mixed together, intertwining until Sid can’t distinguish one from the other, is enough to make heat pool in his gut.) But this is a bit much.

Sid honestly isn’t sure how long his heat lasted; time ceased to matter after Travis went into rut. But he knows it was more than a day or two, probably closer to a week. Which means there’s five or six days’ worth of come, sweat, slick, and other bodily fluids smeared into the sheets, and it’s become a little ripe.

His second thought is that, if he had any lingering doubts about Travis as a potential mate, they’re gone now. His memories of the last few days are fractured and patchy, but he remembers the way Travis took care of him. He would feed Sid bites of food between kisses, would press a water bottle to his lips until Sid drank, and would grab a wash cloth to clean Sid up as much as he could before Sid would inevitably drag him back into bed and beg him for his knot again.

A week or two ago, Sid would have been embarrassed to be found begging for anything from an alpha, let alone a knot, but now, he finds he couldn’t care less. Travis had liked it. Sid knows he had liked it. He can still hear his low, rough voice telling Sid how much he liked it. Sid wouldn’t want anyone else to know he begged an alpha for his knot, but he doesn’t mind if Travis knows how much he wants him. Hell, Travis deserves to know after everything he did for Sid.

Rolling over, Sid presses into Travis’ space and buries his nose in his neck, pulling in deep breaths of his sun-blood-rain scent.

Travis shifts and turns to look at him, hair a wreck and eyes bleary. “Hey babe,” he grumbles. “Morning. Give me a minute, eh? Just need to wake up, and I’ll be good to go.”

Sid presses his teeth into Travis’ shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah,” Travis says, rolling onto his side. “Taking too long, I know.”

“I want you to bite me,” Sid says. “I want to bond.”

Squinting against the bright morning sunlight, Travis frowns at him. “I know,” he says, resting a hand on Sid’s waist, “but not yet. I told you. I don’t want to do it during heat or rut.”

Sid nods and presses closer. “I know, but I’m not in heat anymore. It ended last night.”

Travis’ brow draws together, and he blinks at Sid. “It did?”

“Yeah, can’t you smell it on me? It’s passed.”

Conscious of the gesture’s significance, he tips his head to the side and offers his neck. Travis’ lips part with a wet sound, and he stares at the smooth, unblemished skin, at the place a bond bite would go. He licks his lips, then leans forward, pressing his nose to the proffered skin and drawing in a deep breath.

Sid shivers, and he can feel himself slicking up.

Travis withdraws. “You’re not in heat.”

Sid shakes his head.

“And you still want to bond.”

Sid nods.

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“Even though you’ll get shit for finally letting someone mount you? Even though you’ll get so much shit for letting me mount you?”

Sid hooks a knee over his hip. “I don’t care what people think. I’m sick of living my life for them. I’m sick of letting their opinions affect me.” He rolls their hips together. “I like getting mounted by you, and I’m not going to let any misogynistic, bigoted asshole make me feel bad about that. It doesn’t make me weak; it doesn’t make me any less good at hockey. I like it, and they can go fuck themselves if they think I shouldn’t.”

Grin sharp, Travis curls a hand around Sid’s knee and rocks into him. “Well, in that case, how do you want to do this?”

Pleased, Sid rolls onto his back and pulls Travis with him. “Like this,” he says. “We can change position after you knot me.”

Nodding, Travis reaches a hand between them, nudges Sid’s legs apart, and pushes a couple fingers in. “Fuck, you’re still loose,” he says, breathless.

Sid rocks into the intrusion and sighs. “Just for you, alpha.”

Travis’ fingers still. Then he swears.

Sid’s giggle is cut off by a fierce kiss and the firm press of Travis’ dick at his hole.

\----

**Travis POV**

Travis knows it’s shitty to avoid texts and calls from Nolan, Claude, and the rest of the guys, but he doesn’t want to tip anyone off before he’s ready. When he sees them, they’re going to know immediately. They’re going to know he has a mate; they’re going to smell it on him and see the bond bite; and they’re going to ask questions and talk and come up with increasingly ridiculous guesses about who his mate is. He’d rather not deal with any rumors or confusion or “he said that he said that he said”.

Anyways, it’s not like he isn’t busy when he first gets back to Pennsylvania. Sid had asked him to come to Pittsburgh for a few days to scent the house, which Travis took to mean have sex on every available surface because leaving his scent is good but leaving their combined scent is a million times better. Sid doesn’t have any objections. Travis thinks he might be trying to make up for a lifetime of celibacy before Travis leaves, but he’s not complaining. He’s always enjoyed sex, but bonded sex is on its own level, lightyears ahead of normal sex. He never wanted to be a knothead, but he thinks he might be turning a little slickdumb because he wakes up in the morning with Sid straddled over him, takes a shower with Sid rubbing against him, works out the designated hour and a half before Sid tackles him onto the mats, and follows all of Sid’s careful, precise instructions when he wants Travis to mount him but doesn’t want to feel like he’s being ‘put in his place’.

By the time his week in Pittsburgh is up, the entire house smells like them: Sid’s slick, Travis’ come, their combined sweat. He’s left every shirt he worked out in, carefully folded and sealed in Ziploc bags that Sid can use if he goes into heat and Travis can’t be there, and he has a couple of Sid’s shirts, even a few pairs of briefs he convinced Sid to let him take, half because he wanted them and half because he wanted to watch Sid flush and squirm over the request.

They say goodbye in the entryway. Travis has a rental sitting in the driveway that he’ll take back to the airport. Knowing they wouldn’t leave the house, he had thought it was a waste, but Sid had insisted, saying that an Uber would be a bad idea (because who knows who could be driving and how much they know about hockey) and that he obviously couldn’t take Travis to the airport, even if he wants to.

They spend a good fifteen minutes against the door, neither particularly eager to part, mouths locked and hands wandering as they rock together. Travis can feel Sid pressed against him, hot and hard, and he can smell his slick, thick and cloying. He’s tempted to skip the flight and spin Sid around, get their clothes out of the way and push in one more time. He’d have to pull the plug out that Sid had blushingly asked him to put in that morning after a couple extra hours spent in bed, limbs tangled and breaths synched as Travis, being the good alpha he is, made sweet, sweet love to his omega, bringing him off once, twice, thrice before knotting him, lips attached to his bond bite through most of it.

It’s that thought that has him pulling back.

He doesn’t want to pull the plug out; he doesn’t want to taint the memory of Sid panting his name, hazel eyes nearly glowing and back arched so prettily Travis almost came from the sight alone. He wants that to be what Sid thinks of when he thinks of their last time in bed. He wants him to remember the slow, heady feel of their bond singing between them, pleasure sliding back and forth as Travis had worked Sid over, arms shaking and hips circling. A quickie in the foyer would be like stopping at McDonald’s after Thanksgiving Dinner.

“I need to go,” he tells Sid, though his hands are still firmly attached to Sid’s skin, one in the dip at the small of his back and one beneath the waistband of his sweats, skirting the space between his legs where he knows he’d be able to find the blunt base of the plug.

“I know,” Sid hums, mouth wet against Travis’ neck. “I know.”

The way Sid presses closer, the way he hikes a knee around Travis’ hips to grind against him, makes a certain pride well up in Travis. His omega wants him; he needs him. Even if he’s about to let Travis walk out the door, he doesn’t want him to leave, not really. He’d keep Travis here if he could; he’d keep them together. But that’s not an option, not yet. Soon though, soon.

“Sid,” he says and gently pushes Sid away from him, even as his body and the bond demand they get closer. “Sid, baby, I need to go, or I’m going to miss my flight.”

Sid whines and curls a couple fingers in Travis’ waistband. “You can get one later,” he says, using his grip to drag Travis back against him. “You can take one tonight.” He licks into Travis’ mouth with intent, thumb teasing over the button of Travis’ jeans. “We can spend the afternoon in bed,” he says, breath hot against Travis’ cheek. “You can knot me one more time. I just need one more time.”

He had said that last night when he had crawled onto the bed, settled on his knees, and presented for Travis, head low and hips high, saying they would need to work out in the morning so this would be their last chance. He had said that this morning, when he (The Sidney Crosby, Mr. Routines Are Everything) had woken Travis with wet, sucking kisses down his chest and a hot mouth around his dick, saying that this could be their workout “just once”.

Travis is tempted to give in, so very tempted. He can catch a later flight. Hell, he could catch a redeye or a flight early tomorrow morning. He just needs to get there in time for training camp. If he stayed, he’d be able to take Sid back upstairs, lay him out, and spend another couple hours showering him in praise and making sure he knows he’s the best omega Travis has ever had, the only omega he ever wants. That had been a sore spot when Travis had first admitted to sleeping with other omegas, but he thinks Sid is mostly past that now. He knows Travis doesn’t want anyone else. After having Sid, his perfect mate, who could even compare?

“I need to go,” Travis says instead, despite how badly he wants to stay. “I have to get some things ready for training camp tomorrow.”

Sid pouts. It’s obscene with his full, red lips and wide eyes, and Travis can feel his resolve cracking.

“Hey,” he says, chiding, “don’t do that. That’s not fair. You know I can’t resist that face.”

Sid pouts harder, and Travis cannot believe this is the same guy who comes to Philly with a dead-eye stare and a nasty twist to his lip.

He kisses Sid, nips at his mouth until the pout fades, then presses an apology to the plump swell of his bottom lip. “It’s not going to get any easier if I stay,” he says, and Sid’s face falls. “I could push my flight back, but we would just have to do the same thing later.”

“I know,” Sid mutters. “I know.” Then he leans forward for a final, lingering kiss. When he pulls away, Travis can almost see his Sid, his mate, slipping behind the media mask, disappearing so he can be Sid the hockey player and not Sid the omega who doesn’t want his alpha to leave.

Travis kind of hates it.

“But we can skype tonight, yeah?” he continues. “You can set your computer up and let me watch you take that plug out. I’ll talk you through it, tell you everything I would do if I was there.”

A shiver runs through Sid, and Travis can feel the burst of arousal that pools in his gut.

“I know it’s not the same, but it’s something,” he says. “And I promise I’ll make it good for you.”

Sid nods. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

It settles Travis as much as anything can right now, and he reels Sid in one more time. “I love you,” he says, mouth fierce against Sid’s. “I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Sid murmurs, eyelids drooping. “I’ll be waiting for your call.”

Smirking, Travis pulls backs and lands a quick smack to the meat of Sid’s ass. Sid jolts in his arms and lets out a breathless whine, pressing back into Travis’ hand. “I’ll see you soon,” Travis promises.

“Tell me when you’ve landed,” Sid says.

Pulling the door open, Travis snags his carryon and hefts it over his shoulder. “Aye aye, captain.”

Sid snorts, the edge of a giggle tinting the sound, and he shakes his head. “Bye,” he says, soft and fond and perfect.

Travis swallows the lump in his throat. “Bye, Sid.”

\----

The next morning, he pulls himself out of bed (not thinking about how empty it is without Sid), gets dressed (not thinking about how much he misses watching Sid’s clothes come on or off), prepares breakfast (not thinking about how much he misses Sid’s cooking), and heads to the rink (not thinking about how lonely the ride is without Sid beside him).

They text back and forth a little but can’t talk because Sid is already at the rink, meeting with management and getting ready to meet the new guys and inform the team of his newly-bonded status to Philly’s favorite pest. Travis wishes he wasn’t so responsible, but he also kind of likes the responsibility. Bossy, Captain Sid is fun in bed.

Once he’s parked in the player’s lot, he takes a minute to collect himself, drawing in slow breaths and letting them out for an eight-count. His stomach is a mess of nerves, excitement, worry, and the hollow ache that took up residence there as soon as he walked out Sid’s door yesterday. He rolls his shoulders back and shakes his arms out as best he can.

When it’s nearly time for the pre-practice meeting, he jerks the keys out of the ignition, throws his door open, and heads for the entrance. He passes a couple people on the way and waves, holding in laughter any time someone does a double take after they’ve caught a good whiff of him.

In the locker room, G is already on his feet, calling for attention, so Travis shuffles over to his locker and takes a seat. Nolan gives him a dirty look (for the tardiness, for his marked absence the last month or so, for whatever else pisses Nolan off), but after a huffed breath, his expression shifts to one of confusion then shock.

“What the hell?” he says, stunned. “What the actual hell?” he demands, staring at Travis. “Teeks, what am I smelling right now?”

Travis gives him a “please shut up now” look, but Nolan will not be stopped. He wants answers, and he wants them now, and the more he talks, the more he nudges at Travis, the more attention he draws to them. Soon, the boys around them are starting to sniff at the air, faces going through a plethora of emotions as they turn to look at Travis.

“Alright,” G sighs, resigned as he faces them, “what the hell is going on over there? You’re all acting like you just caught the scent of an omega in heat for the first time.”

“I think someone did catch an omega in heat,” Nolan says, giving Travis a death glare. “Caught, knotted, and bonded.”

Shocked exclamations ripple through the room, and noses lift. Travis would find the sight of twenty plus men scenting the air hilarious, if they weren’t all trying to catch a sniff of him and his new, unknown bond mate.

G clears his throat. “Uh, TK, is there…something you want to share with us?”

Travis looks around the room, and the team looks back, attentive and curious. Sighing, he stands. “Right, I guess I’ll go first talking about my summer. I spent most of it with my family in Clachan or over in Port Stanley, but I…” He hesitates, trying to find the right words. Is there a good way to tell a room full of people whose feelings about Sidney Crosby range from mild dislike to extreme hatred that he is bonded to that same Sidney Crosby? He wets his lips and adjusts his hat. There probably isn’t. Might as well just rip the bandaid off. “Well, I spent most of it with my family, but I also spent the last few weeks up in Nova Scotia and then in Pittsburgh because it turns out Sidney Crosby is my one true mate, so now we’re bonded.” He shrugs, trying for disaffected. “That’s about it for me. Who wants to go next?”

There is silence in the wake of his announcement, complete and oppressive, and after a minute, he shoves his hands in his pockets, heat rising up his neck.

G blinks a couple times, then holds up a hand. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry, hold on. Hold on, hold on, hold on.” He fixes Travis with a probing look. “You _bonded _with Sidney Crosby? Sidney Crosby, Canada’s golden boy, the Eternal Virgin, the Captain of the motherfucking Penguins. You—you, Teeks—bonded with him?”

Travis nods. “I mean, he’s definitely not a virgin now, so you can stop using that nickname.”

Nose scrunching, G reels back. “You slept with him? You slept with Crosby?”

“Uh,” Travis stares at him, “dude, we’re bonded. Sex and bonding kind of go hand in hand.”

G shudders and continues to look at Travis like he’s never seen him before.

“This isn’t a joke, is it?” Wayne asks, suspicious. “You aren’t actually bonded to someone else and just saying it’s Crosby to mess with us, are you?”

Travis frowns. “Why the fuck would I lie about my mate?”

Wayne arches a brow and shrugs. “I’ve heard weirder.”

“Yeah, like the fact that you’re actually bonded to Crosby,” Ghost pipes up. “I mean, what the fuck, TK? You seriously boned down with the hockey robot?”

Narrowing his eyes, Travis stands a little straighter. “Watch it, man. Sid’s my mate. I may still hate the Penguins, but I’m not going to let you talk shit about him.”

“So you’re not going to ask for a trade?” Nolan asks from his left, sounding hopeful.

Travis spins to look at him. “What the hell? Why would I ask for a trade?”

Nolan bites his lip and lifts a shoulder. “He’s your mate. No one would be surprised if you asked for a trade.”

“To the Penguins?” Travis demands. “Dude, no. Absolutely not. Never. Anyways,” he shrugs, “Sid said he doesn’t want to deal with me at practice.”

G snorts and mutters something under his breath. Travis chooses to ignore it.

A grin breaks over Nolan's face, worries forgotten. “Damn, Teeks,” he teases, “you’re so obnoxious even your mate doesn’t want to deal with you.”

“Fuck off,” Travis says, shoving his shoulder. “Don’t be jealous.”

“Of you and Crosby?” Nolan asks, nose wrinkling. “Yeah, hard pass.”

Travis flops back in his seat and knocks their shoulders together. “You just don’t know,” he says. “Man, Nols, the stories I could tell you.”

“About you and Crosby?” Scotty asks, strangled. “Gross.” Well, he says gross, but there’s a morbid curiosity in his eyes that makes Travis doubt the sincerity of his gross.

He rolls his eyes. “It’s not gross, Scotty. I think the words you’re looking for are really fucking hot.”

Scotty doesn’t look convinced.

“So he actually let you mount him?” JVR asks, genuinely interested. “I always thought he hadn’t bonded because he wouldn’t let anyone mount him.”

“Alright,” G cuts in before Travis can proudly inform JVR that Sid wouldn’t let anyone mount him. Travis just happens to be the exception. “We’re not talking about this anymore. We wouldn’t talk about any of your mates or partners like this, so we’re not going to talk about…Travis’ omega either.” That’s apparently easier to say than Sidney Crosby. Travis doesn’t take it personally. “Congratulations on bonding, TK. I hope you guys are happy together.”

Travis smirks. “Super happy,” he assures in a suggestive tone, and G turns a little green.

“Okay, moving on,” he says. “Let’s talk about someone else’s—anyone else’s—summer.”

Lindy raises his hand and offers a story about his summer in Sweden, and G latches onto it like a drowning man to a life preserver.

“Did he let you mount him?” Nolan asks a minute later, whispering so as not to be overheard.

Travis glances at him. “I’m not going to give you the dirty details on my sex life, Nols.”

“Because you don’t want to? Or because Sidney doesn’t want you to?”

Snorting, Travis shakes his head. “Just call him Sid, man. No one calls him Sidney.”

Nolan presses a finger into his side. “Fine,” he huffs. “Because Sid doesn’t want you to?”

Travis pokes him back. “Because it’s none of your business.”

Nolan’s lip curls in a pout, but Travis holds strong. If he can resist Sid’s pout, he sure as hell can resist Nolan’s. After a short standstill, Nolan gives up, huffing, and turns to look at G, who has moved on to a discussion of the week’s schedule. “Fine, but you’re the worst.”

“Am not.”

Nolan fixes him with a flat look. “You didn’t even tell me you bonded. You’re definitely the worst.”

“In my defense, I was a little busy.”

“Yeah, busy mounting Sidney Crosby,” Nolan snaps. “Seriously, man, that’s…insane.”

Travis nods; even he doesn’t feel completely adjusted to the idea of being bonded, especially not to Sid. It’s good though. It’s really good. “Yeah, it is.”

Nolan eyes him, victorious, “So you did mount him,” and Travis groans.

“Drop it, Nols. We’re not having this conversation right now.”

“Okay,” he agrees, far too easily. “We can have it later.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Nolan quirks a brow. “Sure, whatever you say.” Then he turns back to G and nods like he’s been paying attention the whole time.

What a dick, Travis thinks fondly. Then he too tunes into their dear ginger captain, eyes on G but mind 304.4 miles away with a very different captain he can’t wait to see again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, I'd love to know through kudos, comments, or [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/crooked-silence).


End file.
